Multiple UAVs Autonomous Mission Implementation on COTS Autopilots and Experimental Results

In this paper, an autonomous, multi-agent mission controller is developed on GumStix computer to control commercial off-the-shelf autopilots for multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to complete coordinated flights. The design, which uses a distributed control approach without the need for a base station, can be easily expanded to different classes of aircraft and experiments. Using the GumStix for high level mission control allows engineers to rely on the autopilot’s capabilities to perform low level tasks while the mission programmer concentrates on high level decision making to complete given missions. The wireless vehicle-to-vehicle communication enabled through the GumStix computers onboard the vehicles in ad-hoc network mode allows coordinated and cooperative missions of multiple agents to be executed efficiently. The system is verified experimentally through actual coordinated flight experiments using two flying wing UAVs with the Procerus Kestrel autopilot. Finally, the system is integrated with the Quanser Cooperative Control Framework (QCCF) to allow high-level mission programming through MATLAB Simulink blocksets.