2nd Generation Testbed
The Penn aerial vehicles which consists of various quarter scale recreational Piper J3 Cub airframes. Each airframe is equipped with a state-of-the-art Piccolo Avionics Board. The Piccolo board consists of integrated avionics system including the core autopilot, flight sensors, navigation, wireless communication, and payload interface, all in a small and inexpensive package. The companion Piccolo Ground Station supports operating multiple aircraft (up to 10) from a single user interface and ground station (useful for multi-agent applications). Each Piccolo board is powered by the Motorola MPC555 (40 MHz PowerPC with 448KB Flash memory and 26K Static RAM memory) family of automotive micro controllers which include integrated peripherals, memory and hardware floating point. The software architecture includes four concurrent threads (communications, GPS, navigation, autopilot, in increasing order of priority) running over Motorola's microBurst RTOS. There is developed support for high-level graphical development tools for autopilot design (using Matlab®, Simulink®, and Real Time Workshop® ). Key features include end-user programmability, high levels of integration including sensors, GPS, and communication links, an integrated hardware in loop simulator using the CAN bus.
| Airframes - 1/4 scale Piper
J3 Cub
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Onboard Avionics - Piccolo
Higher level Integration & Additional Sensors - Onboard Laptop Dell X200 - High Res. IEEE 1394 Camera - 100 Hz IMU - 10 Hz GPS |
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