Integrating UAV-based flight control systems into OMNet++ through socket connections

• Main Author: Rohan Jain.
• Other Authors: Xie Lihua
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Control and instrumentation::Control engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/46542
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The project aims at developing the flight control system of a group of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for various purposes such as navigation, search and rescue and reconnaissance or even to provide a telescopic eye for the Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV). The cooperative multi-robot system shares information or tasks to accomplish common solo or series objectives. This brings several advantages over single robot approach and greater efficiency and operational capabilities can be realized from a team of vehicles operating in a coordinated fashion. The robustness of the system increases as well with redundant capabilities and dynamically reconfiguring the team in case of robot failures. In order to make the UAV system much more efficient, the model is based on a leader- follower system where a group of UAVs follow a single UAV (the leader) and form a specific formation during the execution of the mission or while performing their task. This model was implemented over the single robot control system in order to lower the costs and simplify the design and implementation. The multi-UAV system used in the system is based on a hybrid platform i.e. real world and the virtual environment. The project involves development of simulation studies to understand and analyze the behavior of different UAVs and to establish a better communication between them. There are three major modules in the project: a virtual network under OMNet++ which serves the purpose of a proxy and maintains wireless communication with the other real world applications, a central console under LabView which consists of the basic UAV module and functions along with some control algorithms implemented in MATLAB and finally Unreal Game Engine which uses the USARSim (Unified System for Automation and Robot Simulation) protocol. Finally the different modules are integrated to interact with each other using the socket connections between them and thereby controlling the whole system via exchange of packets.