Control and Management of an Indoor, Health Enabled, Heterogenous Fleet
David J. Halaas, Stefan R. Bieniawski, Paul Pigg, John L. Vian · AIAA Infotech@Aerospace Conference · 2009
Coordination of multiple, autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles is a growing topic within the research community. Universities and industry players are investing in Multi-vehicle, unmanned testbeds in order to better understand the benefits and logistics of vehicle coordination. Boeing operates an indoor flight facility to enable hardware-in-the-loop, System of Systems evaluations in utilizing a heterogeneous autonomous fleet of air and ground vehicles. Aside from providing a cost effective means of evaluating new autonomous vehicle technologies, the facility includes an existing fleet of heterogeneous helicopters that are used to test high level, health based mission management concepts. This paper discusses the control and health-based management concepts required for the safe, reliable and efficient operation of vehicles in the facility. Details and advantages of the modular facility hardware architecture, which is key to rapid integration of new vehicle concepts, is described. A rapid control law design process, suitable for all types of helicopters, is also discussed and the actual flight performance of all vehicles is presented. Finally, the safety and reliability benefits of autonomous, health based vehicle monitoring and behavior are discussed. I.