Wireless Sensor Network Based Real Time System of Autonomous Flight Control

Abstract

Real-time control of rocket or flight engine sensor data improves mission safety and also reduces flight operations and ground test costs. NASA Research Center, in partnership with Expert Microsystems has developed an innovative sensor validation system enabling real-time, automated sensor failure detection for all types of mission critical systems. A prototype sensor validation software module, designed to validate 22 SSME flight sensors, was demonstrated by real-time embedded system testing in a Boeing fault tolerant flight computer within the NASA Marshall Avionics System Testbed. Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles (UAV) represent an attractive solution for those monitoring applications in hazardous environments, where direct human intervention is difficult or impossible to achieve. Small autonomous aircrafts represents a convenient possibility for monitoring large areas. Controlling such systems, however, is very challenging due to the limited resources available onboard and to the high number of constraints, including weight, space, time, energy, and cost. This paper presents a real-time flight control system for an autonomous aircraft model. The control system runs on an embedded hardware platform that includes the microcontroller, the sensors for navigation and environment monitoring, the power management circuit and the wireless communication system. The applications is implemented on top of a real-time operating system suitable for embedded microprocessors, which manages a set of concurrent activities dedicated to sensory acquisition, flight control, communication, and resource management.
Key Words: WSN, Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles, Aircraft Model, Microsystem.