A low-cost modular avionics and telemetry software system for the CReSIS Meridian Uninhabited Aerial System

This paper describes an avionics software system under development for the Center of Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) Meridian Uninhabited Aerial System (UAS). The system is designed to acquire data from multiple Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) Line-Replaceable Units (LRUpsilas), log this data onboard, and transmit it via an Iridium data link. Primary design goals of this system are high modularity and low total life-cycle cost. The software is currently meant to bus information on non-flight-critical systems. For this reason it was deemed acceptable to use non-traditional software engineering methodologies to design and implement the software. The software is designed using object-oriented techniques prescribed by the Unified Process and implemented in C++. All development tools used for this project, known as the Meridian Auxiliary Avionics System (MAAS), are either open-source or freely available. This paper serves as a case study for the use of the Unified Process in aerospace applications.