Unmanned aerial system architecture for maritime missions. design & hardware description

The growing interest in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) research, alongside with increasingly affordable hardware, creates great opportunity for research facilities to compare algorithms and simulation results with applied in-flight performance. However, developing the necessary equipment for such endeavour requires significant effort, often beyond available resources and the main research focus. As a solution, a system architecture for enabling advanced experiments is presented, allowing researchers to reduce the amount of required effort in developing a UAS. The proposed architecture is compatible with current state-of-the-art research facilities and standards, promoting an increased cooperation between experts in the field. The capabilities of the presented setup have evolved and been verified during intensive field experiments over the past two years, considering various algorithms and distinct equipment. This paper provides a detailed description of both the architecture and implementation details, such as the used hardware and software, being therefore a potential reference for the research community and for facilities planning the development of their own UAS.