Autonomous control system and real-time simulation platform for UAV

Current Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are designed to perform specific, limited mission profiles. The autonomous control technique is the foundation and key to implement these tasks in complex situation. The basic architecture and information flow of UAV autonomous control system (ACS) are detailedly discussed in this paper, including three levels: MMS, VMS, and UAV model. There are two interfaces in the system, one between UAV and GCS, the other between UAV and environment. Furthermore, a specific UAV system structure for SEAD mission is studied to validate the extensibility of the basic one. A real-time simulation platform for UAV is also proposed to research the validity of the ACS architecture and the algorithms applied in it, from which a plurality of mission specific UAVs could be built. The platform developed for SEAD mission simulation has the abilities of path planning for a special task, taking off and landing independently, terrain avoiding and follow, ground target attack, and path replanning in flying.