A Reconfigurable Flight Management System for Small-Scale Unmanned Air Systems

Unmanned air systems are becoming increasingly pervasive in academia as well as industry. Aerospace research and education have to-date focused on the fundamental aerodynamics, structures, and control technologies required for these systems, typically relying on commercial avionics packages to provide the hardware and baseline software needed for unmanned vehicle flight testing. This paper describes an ongoing effort at the University of Michigan to design, implement, and adapt to multiple platforms an open-source, reconfigurable flight management system. Emphasis has been placed on modularity and extensibility, resulting in a system that equally addresses Aerospace education and research challenges. This paper overviews the avionics and software design, implementation, and testing processes completed to-date. Use of the University of Michigan Flight Management System (UM-FMS) to support education in software engineering, embedded instrumentation, and multi-layer control is discussed, along with adaptation to specific flight vehicles.