A Research Platform For Embedded Flight Control System Of Unmanned Helicopter

The Unmanned Helicopter has been applied widely to the domains of military, industry, commerce, scientific research and so on, because of its inherent advantages. It will play a more and more important role in the national economy and defense system. To achieve the good flying qualities, the flight control system is a key component. The good flight control system is based on the supports of the avionics hardware and system software. This paper focuses on the avionics hardware system and system software of the flight control platform to the unmanned helicopter.Firstly, the requirements about avionics hardware, such as sensors, flight control computer etc. were analyzed according to the requirements of unmanned helicopter, and the components with the standard interfaces meeting performance and specification were chosen, which became the basement of the flight control platform building, succeeding ground and flight test. Secondly, the Embedded Real-time Operation System(RTOS) VxWorks was used as the system software supports for the unmanned helicopter, and the flight control computer system was developed. Based on the RTOS VxWorks, an embedded real-time environment was built in order to meet the functionality requirements, such as onboard flight control system data process and communication, control laws algorithm etc. Thirdly, flight control architecture was designed using the modularization design concept. The avionics boxes were designed, and the avionics system was integrated and encapsulated. These efforts were made to create good conditions for further work. Finally, embedded real-time simulation was accomplished by the MATLAB/RTW, and brought a new method for control laws simulation and test.