As air vehicle flight control and avionics systems are required to deliver more functionality and perform more complex missions, their onboard software becomes increasingly complicated to design and produce. Flight control systems for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have the added complexity of autonomous or remote control.
Using MathWorks tools, engineers at BAE Systems Controls in Johnson City, New York, and Santa Monica, California, developed and successfully flight tested a UAV flight avionics system and ground control station in just eight months. The tools enabled the geographically separated teams to design, model, and analyze the control system, simulate the UAV, visualize the simulation data, perform testing, and automatically generate the autopilot code, all in a single environment.
“MathWorks products greatly reduced our development cycle time and cut system and software design and testing costs by 50%,” says Feng Liang, principal engineer at BAE Systems Controls.