Low Cost Autopilot System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

摘要

This paper will present the development of a low cost autonomous flight control system for small unmanned aerial vehicles with the aim to support collaborative aerial 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 through 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 stable and accurate flight while reducing the total system cost to less than $250.