Discrete- Event Supervisory Control for the Landing Phase of a Helicopter Flight

We introduce a new method for supervisory control used in the landing phase of an autonomy system for the Bell-412 Advanced Systems Research Aircraft, which includes fly-by-wire capabilities. The complexity of the autonomy system makes it necessary to include a high-level supervisory controller that monitors mission's progress and allocates resources on board accordingly. Supervisory controllers are commonly embedded within a monolithic program and lack explicit state flows, requiring significant effort to modify and test the system's behavior. This research uses the DEVS formalism and the Cadmium simulation engine to model, implement, verify, validate, test, and deploy a state-based and event-driven supervisory controller for helicopters. We use the NRC's Bell-412 helicopter autonomy system as a case study to present the whole development cycle. The methodology is illustrated with simulated models that were tested using graphical specifications and domain experts and verified using Cadmium in both simulated and real-time testing suites.