Low-Cost Reconfigurable Control System for Small UAVs

A case study of an open-source low-cost reconfigurable autopilot design for small unmanned aerial vehicles (the Remotely operated Aerial Model Autopilot (RAMA) control system) is presented in this paper. A novel distributed hierarchical architecture, implementing graceful degradation and run-time system reconfiguration techniques, is introduced. RAMA is capable of reconfiguration in case of emergency, meaning that the most critical functions, needed for vehicle controllability, can be taken over by another node of the system if the primary node fails, sacrificing some noncritical functionality. RAMA also utilizes a novel control scheme and controller implementation. Some of the results, obtained during several hundred test flights performed so far, are presented at the end.