Design and implementation of avionics system for mini autonomous helicopter

Avionics system is the critical equipment for autonomous helicopter. In this paper, the detailed design scheme of avionics system for mini autonomous helicopter was proposed. Firstly, the overall structure of the proposed avionics system was introduced, the system is composed of airborne sensors, flight control computer, power system, wireless communications link and remote control link. Then the sensor selection and integration schemes were detailed, higher integrity and lower cost can be achieved by the integration of chip level sensors. The flight control computer is based on upper and lower structure, the PC104 is the upper computer and achieves the functions of integrated navigation, flight control, path planning and communications, the lower microcontroller is responsible for sensor signal collection, servo control and engine speed stabilization. Finally, the reliability design of the proposed avionics system was introduced. The proposed avionics system, which is highly integrated, stable, light in weight, low power and low cost, has been applied to the Hirobo 90 class helicopter and successfully realized the subjects of hovering, trajectory flight and autonomous landing.