Feature article: A UAV software flight management system using arinc communication protocols

Most large commercial aircraft use a flight management system (FMS) to provide aircraft state estimation, trajectory prediction, lateral and vertical guidance, flight plans, and target setpoints (e.g., optimal cruise speed), among other functionality [1]. With unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) gaining popularity in commercial and military applications [2], the integration of UAVs in shared airspace with current aircraft has become an important problem to address. There has been consideration for the use of unmanned aircraft for package delivery with the use of small quadrotor UAVs for local demand [3] and large unmanned commercial aircraft for shipping goods internationally [4]. With the UAV industry poised to grow [2], one must consider how to integrate UAVs with the current systems for manned aircraft. Due to the importance of FMS to aircraft, a logical step would be to consider an FMS for UAVs that can adhere to current aircraft regulations and protocols. Flight management systems for UAVs can involve certification, collision detection, mission planning, and many other topics. One can find a number of simulated FMS for consumer flight simulators (i.e., Microsoft Flight Simulator and X-Plane [6]) that try to replicate the interface and functionality of currently available flight management systems. The purpose of this article is to take this idea further by building an FMS in software that can interface with real aircraft and UAVs using industry standard communication protocols.