ITEE Innovation Expo 2008 : Project Details

Autonomous Aircraft

This Thesis forms part of a project to achieve autonomous aircraft flight with a radio controlled model aircraft. Covered in the scope of work is the design, implementation, testing and analysis of an open loop system to control an unmodified model aircraft. The scope includes three separate modules; the Control Agent, Modulator and Transmitter. The Control Agent is a software application that provides a front end to manually and programmatically control the aircraft and offers the ability to record and playback all or part of a flight (e.g. Take off, Landing, Stunts).

The Modulator is a Microcontroller controlled digital circuit that modulates the information from the Control Agent in to a signal that can be interpreted by the aircraft. The Modulation Hardware also provides simultaneous output of control information to a serial port. This can then be attached to a flight simulator to simulate flight. Finally, the Transmitter is a radio frequency analogue circuit that transmits the modulated signal to the aircraft.

The modular design of the system means that each module can be improved without adversely affecting the other modules. The results of this thesis provide the groundwork for further development to obtain feedback driven, completely autonomous aircraft flight.