Proposal of hardware-in-the-loop control platform for small fixed-wing UAVs

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have received considerable attention from the academic community and technology solutions companies, given their civilian and military applications. The autopilot system shall be thoroughly tested in lab because an accident may cause irreversible damage to the UAV. This article presents a proposal of a Hardware-In-the-Loop platform for testing and validation of a small fixed-wing aircraft. Besides a communication system, it was developed a deflection measurement platform of the aircraft control surfaces. This measurement platform was validated, enabling future work on implementing embedded control algorithms.