The development of an autonomous control system for a small UAV: Waypoints following system

A small UAV is being developed in the Faculty of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, ITB, Indonesia. The UAV system is designed for surveillance missions in a rural area. The limitation of payload space, weight, and power source demands the system to be designed with limited application of sensors and actuators, while it is still required to be able to perform its mission within a predefined measures. In this paper, the development of a waypoints following system, as a part of the UAV autonomous system, is discussed. The system is developed using the principle of the VOR-hold system (VOR stands for VHF Omni-directional Radio Range). The developed waypoint following system plays a key role in keeping the flight path of the UAV during its mission. The implementation of a state feedback for this hold system is studied so that the UAV can track the desired flight path and reject any disturbance which can cause path drifting.