A reliable reconfigurable bus for light unmanned aircraft

Rapid configuration and run-time reconfiguration is an attractive capability in unmanned aerial control systems that typically have strict weight, size and cost constraints and commonly employ commercial off the shelf (COTS) components. This paper presents our current work on developing the hardware/software infrastructure to support such systems. First, a small form factor processing node that is based on an 8051 variant microcontroller serves as the standard node in the distributed processing environment. These node processors were designed to meet the needs of light unmanned aerial vehicle and feature two robust broadcast networking technology interfaces: the controller area network (CAN) and Zigbee. Two software layers were further developed to interface the processing nodes to the reconfiguration capable application software. The lowest layer provides an API for task scheduling and inter-task data communication both locally and across the network. The higher layer performs the scheduling and unscheduling of task and manages all data routing. A full implementation of the system is currently being tested using both the wired CAN and the wireless Zigbee networks.