A configuration tool for process oriented UAV programming.

Abstract

This thesis covers the design, implementation and evaluation of a configuration tool for process oriented Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) programming. In addition it will examine if and how a process network can be used to control sensors and communication channels on an UAV in flight.

NORUT-IT is currently developing a sensor platform based on UAVs. The mission computer software they have at the moment have room for improvement when it comes down to issues regarding routing and prioritizing between available network connections. One issue that has been identified is not being able to route between multiple available networks. They have to predefine which network connection the UAV should use to connect to the ground station when it is in flight. It will use this connection the entire flight even if a faster and/or cheaper network connection is available in some areas of the mission.

Together with this issue, having a platform with a number of sensors working together, will be challenging to configure and might require programming skills to some degree to set up correctly.

Communicating sequential processing(CSP) have properties that can help in building concurrent, reliable and scalable programs. By using CSP and a process configuration tool, the complexity of configuring the mission computer of an UAV can be reduced.

The implementation will demonstrate a tool that are believed to be intuitive and will lower the challenge of configuring a process network intended to control the sensors and communication channels on an UAV.

The process network creator tool have a graphical interface and a collection of premade CSP processes. It will also have the ability to convert the graphical representation of the process network into a running CSP process.