Onboard Digital Actuator Controller Software for Flight Control Actuators of UAV

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) requires safety critical Electro Mechanical Actuators (EMA) for automatic and/or assisted takeoff, maneuvering and landing. Currently, two types of EMA's are required for flight control applications: geared or direct drive. In safety-critical airborne applications, airborne software poses unique concern on software quality due to its demanding requirements on system performance. Development and effective use of Hardware Software Integration (HSI) test environment for on-board software testing can ensure reliable high quality software for airborne application. This paper addresses the need for HSI setup to test software thoroughly on ground for both functional and performance testing. Software testing on ground assures software quality factors like availability, reliability, survivability, flexibility, durability, security, re-usability and maintainability features.