The UAVOS family of autopilot systems has to date flown around a thousand flight hours on a variety of UAV platforms such as the Saker Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV, the HiDRON stratospheric glider, the ApusDuo high altitude stratospheric platform (HAPS), a range of manned aircraft converted into drones, and fully autonomous unmanned helicopters.
Based on a distributed architecture, UAVOS’ flight management system consists of the autopilot, a ground station, a simulation environment and operator interface software, supporting fully autonomous flight operations for complex UAV platforms.
Updates to the autopilot firmware include:
- Upgraded control algorithms for increased flight control precision and accuracy. For example, the deviation from waypoint navigation is estimated to be not more than 2×2 meters (without using Real-time Kinematic Positioning mode).
- Bandwidth of up to 8 KHz for primary loop controls (stabilization), and 100 Hz for outer loop controls (navigation). The update rate is adjusted automatically, based on available sensor data rate.
- Navigation accuracy in GNSS-denied environments has been increased, and is estimated to be around 2 to 3 km per flight hour.
Aliaksei Stratsilatau, CEO of UAVOS, commented: “We are pleased to provide our reliable software solution for unmanned platform control. The next-generation autopilot reflects UAVOS’ determination to continue investing in industry-leading technology while becoming more competitive.”
