Development of a plug-and-play engine to smart sensors arrays in Unmanned Aerial Systems

Abstract

The use of unmanned aircrafts has grown substantially in recent years. It is expected in a close future, that these aircrafts dominate the airspace, requiring new architectures for embedded systems that can ensure a safe and coordinated operation. Missions performed by these aircrafts should be more diverse than those current accomplished by the manned aircraft. In fact, most missions relies heavily on a set of sensors carried by the aircraft as part of the payload. This paper contemplates the development of SSI/SSP (Smart Sensor Interface/Smart Sensor Protocol), a plug-and-play mechanism for the coupling of the MOSA (Mission Oriented Sensor Arrays) sensors, providing automatic configuration of the MOSA unit and the aircraft to accomplishing a specific mission. Is part of this work selection/adaptation of the hardware being used and the specification/implementation of the SSP protocol. This requires the characterization of basic services provided by the aircraft through a framework based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA), the KBF (Knowledge Based Framework for Dynamically Changing Applications) one. It is also part of this work, characterizing typical missions of UAVs, including the characterization of parameters needed for its achievement. The implemented subsystem should be test-bed validated as to its functionality, performance and proper operation of the protocol developed. (AU)