Design of an Autopilot for Cessna 182

There is currently an increasing demand for automatic control systems due to their several applications in the civilian and military domains. Autopilot systems improve the guidance and piloting mechanisms of the aircrafts. This paper presents the design of an autopilot system and its respective simulation. In particular, our design is simulated for the Cessna 182. The implementation of the designed controllers for the proposed autopilot was undertaken using an Arduino board which was tested together with a flight simulator. The communication between the devices was carried out through a data communication network so that the information processed by the controllers was sent directly to the control surfaces of the aircraft represented in the flight simulator. A case study was developed where the proposed autopilot was submitted to several flight conditions. The results obtained indicate that models and hardware used to design the autopilot system are feasible and kept the aircraft stabilized.