Software architecture for controlling in real time aerial prototypes

Nowadays, there exists several platforms or experimental prototypes of aerial vehicles to control algorithm validation, most of them being specific for certain applications. The implementation of the control laws in commercial platforms is often restricted to certain criteria and pre-established conditions defined by the commercial system (or the builder). In this paper, a new generic software architecture operating under Linux, MATLAB®, ROS and Ardupilot is introduced for analyzing, evaluating and improving control algorithms for aerial robotics. The tedious programming code is not necessary because the code is generated by MATLAB Simulink®. The proposed architecture is composed of a ground station (GS) and a robot with an embedded system. This platform is validated with a new aerial prototype with tilting four rotors. Experimental results illustrate the good performance of the software architecture even when different maneuvers are demanded to the aerial prototype.