Abstract
The present article details the development steps and experimental results obtained during the development of smart actuators used on mini unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The research e ort is driven by the need of developing onboard health monitoring and diagnostics units for small size UAVs to improve their reliability. In the present all small UAVs use single string avionics systems with no built in redundancy, moreover the servo actuators onboard the airplane are often commercial o the shelf (COTS) hobby components with no reliability figures, limited performance guarantees and one directional communication using analog PWM signals. The development of new servo generation focused on solving the above issues. The proposed servo actuators use the existing mechanical gearboxes and housing of the COTS components, but their power electronics, motor control hardware and software components, sensors are custom designed to fit the needs of a higher demand. The actuators with their controlling microprocessors are capable of establishing two way communication via CAN and FlexRay protocol, suitable for safety critical applications, the actuators. The development challenges and experimental results in a hardware-in-theloop (HIL) simulator are discussed in the paper.
Highlights
The present article details the development steps and experimental results obtained during the development of smart actuators used on mini unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)
The avionics system is based on the philosophy, that in most situations a carefully selected set of built-in-tests and proper handing over protocols between parallel channels can provide the necessary reliability figures [13]
5 Conclusion The present article discusses the development of a smart actuator used on a small scale UAV
Summary
The present article details the development steps and experimental results obtained during the development of smart actuators used on mini unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The proposed servo actuators use the existing mechanical gearboxes and housing of the COTS components, but their power electronics, motor control hardware and software components, sensors are custom designed to fit the needs of a higher demand. The actuators with their controlling microprocessors are capable of establishing two way communication via CAN and FlexRay protocol, suitable for safety critical applications, the actuators. A consortium including BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Motorola, and Philips, has developed FlexRay for powertrain and chassis control in cars It differs from conventional buses like CAN or LIN, since its operation is divided between time-triggered and event- triggered activities. Each FlexRay interface (it is called a communication controller) drives the lines to its interconnects through separate bus guardians located with the interface. (This means that with two buses, each node has three clocks: one for the controller and one for each of the two guardians; this differs from the bus configuration of TTA, an alternative time-triggered protocol [18], where there is one clock for the controller and both guardians share a second clock.) Like the bus configuration of TTA, the guardians of FlexRay are not fully independent of their controllers
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
