Hardware redundancy in autopilots, such as the Veronte Autopilot 4x from Embention, is a system architecture designed to enhance the reliability and resilience of control systems in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
By incorporating hardware redundancy, the system can eliminate single points of failure, thereby ensuring uninterrupted mission execution. An additional benefit of hardware redundancy in critical control systems is its ability to sustain operations under the same conditions, making it well-suited for both fail-safe and fail-operational missions.
While integrating redundant hardware may contribute to increased weight and volume in the aircraft, the reliability advantages significantly outweigh these drawbacks, particularly in high-stakes missions where fail-operational capabilities are necessary to maintain full autopilot functionality and ensure mission success.
Hardware Redundancy in the Veronte Autopilot
The Veronte Autopilot 4x serves as a prime example of how hardware redundancy is integrated into an autopilot system for critical drone and eVTOL applications.
Its design incorporates multiple fully independent Veronte Autopilot cores and supports external autopilot connectivity, enabling seamless automatic switching between units in the event of a failure. This ensures continuous mission execution without disruption, even in demanding conditions.
One of the key advantages of hardware redundancy, as seen in the Veronte Autopilot 4x, is its substantial contribution to system reliability. While software-based functional redundancy manages errors by activating failsafe protocols—placing the system into an emergency state and terminating the mission—hardware redundancy provides continuous and active protection.
This is especially critical in applications where a single component failure could compromise the mission. With this redundancy in place, the vehicle can maintain full operational capacity even if one unit encounters a failure, including faults in the arbitration board responsible for redundancy management. As a result, overall operational safety is significantly enhanced.
Furthermore, the Veronte Autopilot 4x has been engineered to meet DO178C / ED12 and DO254 / ED80 certification standards, with DAL B compliance (DAL A in progress), and has undergone testing in accordance with DO160. This reinforces its dependability in environments where safety is of utmost importance.
