HiL evaluation of an on-chip-based optimal H∞ controller on the stability of a MAV in flight simulation

This work introduces a novel methodology to assist the evaluation of a wide class of control algorithms for all-type aircrafts using Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) based flight simulation. The originality of this paper is using Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) as the environment to embed both dynamic and graphic models of Ascending Technologies Pelican MAV (Mini Aerial Vehicle) flying robot, and using an external embedded system to control the attitude of this virtual aircraft. The full duplex communication between the virtual aircraft and the control algorithm is achieved by a custom Delphi software named FVMS (Flight Variables Management System), presented in its first version in Aeroconf 2013, fully developed by Aerial Robots Team (ART). FVMS software is able to reach (read/write) a large number of flight variables from MSFS, send them to the external hardware and receive back the control signals to actuate in the virtual aircraft. We first completely present FVMS system architecture and main features. Later, the synthesis and the application of the optimal H-Infinity robust control algorithm in the external embedded system, connected to FMVS through USB interface at 115.200 bits/s of baud rate. The microcontroller used was the Microchip 16-bits dsPIC33FJ128MC706A, which assumes the complete attitude control of the virtual Pelican MAV robot. Regarding MAVs control evaluation, HiL simulation, considerably contributes to save battery time, to ease control synthesis and prototyping and to prevent accidents during tests with the real robot. The final goal is to evaluate the stability of the Pelican platform in hovering tasks in flight simulation focusing on the efficiency of the external hardware to properly deal with the optimal H-Infinity robust control algorithm actions. The HiL control of the MAV capabilities can be extended to assist the design of other classes of controllers. Such methodology allows designers to expedite control changes, e.g., gain modification in execution time.