Design and development of effective manual control system for unmanned air vehicle

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are remotely piloted or self-piloted aircraft that are capable of flight without any on-board operator and can carry cameras, sensors, communications equipment or other payloads. UAVs have been used in a reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering role, including combat and rescue missions. This paper describes development and implementation of remote manual control system for a UAV. The paper includes design of manual control of air vehicle to achieve the desired target using a joystick and engine vibrations analysis. XBee-PRO 900 XSC OEM RF modules are used with extended-range, with 900 MHz embedded wireless system, providing end-point connectivity. The wireless transmitter and receiver pairs are used for data communication link between the ground station and the receiver on the vehicle. The manual control system is developed in a PC based system reducing the cost of overall system. Microsoft Visual Basic language is used for this control system.