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2010

Virginia Commonwealth University

UAV

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Development Of A Flexible Fpga-Based Platform For Flight Control System Research, Robert Demott Dec 2010

Development Of A Flexible Fpga-Based Platform For Flight Control System Research, Robert Demott

Theses and Dissertations

This work is part of ongoing research conducted at Virginia Commonwealth University relating to unmanned aerial vehicles. The primary objective of this thesis was to develop a flexible, high-performance autopilot platform in order to facilitate research on advanced flight control algorithms. A dual FPGA-based system architecture utilizing a stacked, multi-board design was created to meet this goal. Processing tasks were split between the two FPGA devices, allowing for improved system timing and increased throughput. A combination of analog and digital filtering techniques were employed in the new system, resulting in enhanced sensor accuracy and precision compared to the previous generation …


Development Of A Low Cost Autopilot System For Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Jose Ortiz Aug 2010

Development Of A Low Cost Autopilot System For Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Jose Ortiz

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis was to develop a low cost autonomous flight control system for small unmanned aerial vehicles with the aim to support collaborative systems. A low cost hardware solution was achieved by careful selection of sensors, integration of hardware subsystems, and the use of new microcontroller technologies. Flight control algorithms to guide a vehicle though waypoint based flight paths and loiter about a point were implemented using direction fields. A hardware in the loop simulator was developed to ensure proper operation of all hardware and software components prior to flight testing. The resulting flight control system achieved …