Graduation Semester and Year

2008

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

Frank Lewis

Abstract

The topic discussed in this work addresses the current research being conducted at the Automation & Robotics Research Institute in the areas of UAV helicopter instrumentation targeted towards aerobatic flight control and heterogenous multi-vehicle cooperation. A modular electronic control system is designed which includes sensors communicating over a CAN bus and an on-board computer that runs a special real-time Linux kernel. The majority the electronics is developed by the author, including the electronic schematics, PCB design, component soldering and the supporting software. Commercially available modules are used for the radio transceivers or the on-board computer. The same control system is reusable on other types of vehicles and on the ground stations, facilitating the development of multi-vehicle control algorithms. The control algorithms are developed in Simulink, converted to C code and compiled into a special application that runs on the on-board computer or on the base stations. Special blocks are developed for the sensors and the actuators, but also for entire vehicles, providing very easy access to the process data in Simulink.

Disciplines

Electrical and Computer Engineering | Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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