Design of autonomous flight control system for small-scale UAV

The aim of this paper is to develop a design of autonomous flight control system for a small-scale unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The hardware of autopilot is based on ATmega 2560, which is one of the best low-power MCU. High accuracy sensors including MPU6000, HMC58831, MS5611 are integrated into the autonomous flight control system. Laser distance sensor is used in measuring the altitude in auto landing, because of the zero drift of barometer. Flight control laws of lateral and longitudinal loops are designed. Finally, flight tests are carried out to verify the designed autonomous flight control system, the results of which indicate that the aircraft can fly stable with acceptable precision.