An Autopilot Testbed for IMA (Integrated Modular Avionics) Architectures

Abstract

This paper presents a testbed for designing autopilots that allows to easily derive implementations from a design model that can be analyzed, tested, and deployed on an IMA (Integrated Modular Avionics) architecture. Autopilots are designed using the Model Based Design (MBD) methodology. The paper reviews all the software development phases of the autopilot using this methodology: modeling, design, verification and deployment. Special emphasis is put on the deployment phase and the implications for porting a design to an IMA architecture based on XtratuM, a hypervisor developed in our research group. The main requirement of autopilot design has been flexibility to test different guidance and control strategies. In this sense, we provide a modular design template for efficiently designing and testing other guidance techniques that clearly separates position estimation, guidance and control modules, and allows several flight modes.