Towards low-power, low-profile avionics architecture and Control for Micro Aerial Vehicles

The conventional Mini and Large scale UAV systems span anywhere from approximately 12 inches to 12 feet; endowing them with larger propulsion systems, batteries/fuel-tanks, which in turn provide ample footprint and power reserves for on-board avionics and wireless telemetry. The limitations thus imposed become apparent when shifting to Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) and trying to equip them with equal or near-equal processing, sensing and communication capabilities, as their larger scale cousins. The conventional MAV as outlined by DARPA is a vehicle that can have a maximum dimension of 6 inches and weighs no more than 100 grams. Under these tight constraints, the footprint, weight and power reserves available to on-board avionics is drastically reduced. The paper presents the advent of a new line of Micro Architecture and Control (MARC) avionics systems with very low-power, multi-sensor, multi-processor avionics interconnect architecture designed specifically with the power and payload constraints of MAVs in mind. The results and a Real Time Operating System (RTOS) based Hardware in the Loop Simulation (HILS), flight control is discussed towards the end.