engineering design day 2012 - College of Engineering @ The ...
engineering design day 2012 - College of Engineering @ The ...
engineering design day 2012 - College of Engineering @ The ...
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Autopilot integrAtion on Micro Air Vehicles<br />
Interdisciplinary <strong>Engineering</strong> Design Program<br />
clAss<br />
ENGR 498A/B<br />
sponsor<br />
Dr. Jonathan Sprinkle, ECE<br />
Dr. Sergey Shkarayev, AME<br />
sponsor Mentor/ADVisor<br />
Dr. Jonathan Sprinkle, ECE<br />
Dr. Sergey Shkarayev, AME<br />
project Mentor<br />
Dr. Patrick Marcus<br />
teAM MeMBers<br />
Jared Hainsworth (AE/ME)<br />
Kyle Merry (Physics/CoE)<br />
Daniel Schucker (CoE)<br />
Chris Wozny (CoE/CSC)<br />
AE = Aerospace <strong>Engineering</strong><br />
CoE = Computer <strong>Engineering</strong><br />
CSC = Computer Science<br />
ME = Mechanical <strong>Engineering</strong><br />
teAM 4938: project suMMAry<br />
<strong>The</strong> project involved the integration <strong>of</strong> various<br />
specialized autopilots into micro air vehicles (MAV).<br />
<strong>The</strong> open-source Paparazzi and GINA autopilot<br />
provide for autonomous flight <strong>of</strong> the MAV using<br />
control theory and various sensors to pilot the<br />
aircraft without human interaction. <strong>The</strong> autopilot<br />
team integrated the two separate autopilots into<br />
the airframes and optimized the flight and navigation<br />
systems while an aerospace team <strong>design</strong>ed two airframes: one for outdoor flight<br />
and one for indoor. <strong>The</strong>se 3D printed airframes operate using servos, elevons, rudder,<br />
electronic speed controller, and two contra-rotating motors. <strong>The</strong>se can be interfaced<br />
with a remote control to fly the plane in a stability augmented mode in addition to fully<br />
autonomous flight. <strong>The</strong> autopilot controls the elevons, rudder, and speed controller.<br />
<strong>The</strong> system uses GPS for location estimation and IMU for the attitude and heading<br />
reference system to pilot the aircraft. For one autopilot, the data is processed directly on<br />
the plane using an ARM Cortex microcontroller. For the other, the controls computation<br />
is done on the base station and then transmitted back to the aircraft. A modem allows<br />
for communication between the autopilot and the ground control station (GCS). <strong>The</strong> GCS<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware provides the operator with the ability to make and modify flight plans and monitor<br />
the MAV’s flight path in real time. Also, a video system on the aircraft allows the operator<br />
a view from the MAV for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in real time. <strong>The</strong> true<br />
benefit <strong>of</strong> this project is that the autopilot is relatively inexpensive compared to commercial<br />
autopilots; however, it functions as accurately and as efficiently, if not more so.<br />
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