Avionics system for a mini-helicopter robot in a rapid software prototyping environment

This paper describes the hardware and software of the avionics for a mini-helicopter robot called Colibrí, which provides the instrumentation, intelligence, and energy to the autonomous navigation. The paper describes the function of each electronic device in the navigation system and explains the tools for rapid software prototyping. This programming environment uses a high-level graphical language like Simulink® to design a test model, and from it automatically build the executable code in C, which runs in the QNX real-time operating system during each flight. Matlab® Real-Time Workshop is the tool that enables this efficient programming methodology. The tests in pilot assisted flights show that the environment makes easy the development of state estimators, finite state machines, controllers and other subsystems.