Sub-Systems and Components for UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE Systems

 Aerial vehicles

 Electro-optical payloads

 Electronic payloads

 Mission control Element

 Secure data links

 Remote receiving terminals

 Airborne data relays

 Launch and Recovery system

 Air Vehicle. It is a flying platform carrying a sensor package, capable of being controlled
from a ground control station. It consists of an airframe, power plant guidance and control
system, and navigation equipment and an on board recorder.

 Mission control element: The MCE is responsible for key mission plan elements that include
flight, communication, sensor, and dissemination planning; sensor processing; and aircraft
and mission payload control. Once airborne, the LRE hands off the aerial vehicle to the MCE.
The modern MCE has the ability to command and control up to three air vehicles
simultaneously, while receiving imagery from one.

Mission control element

Inside Mission control Element

 Launch and Recovery

Element: The
 Launch and Recovery Element (LRE) prepares, launches, and recovers the Global Hawk. It
verifies the health and status of the various subsystems aboard the vehicle, receives the
mission plan from the Mission Control Element (MCE), and loads it into the UAV. During
launch and recovery, the LRE is responsible for air vehicle control, coordination with local
and route traffic control facilities, and air vehicle hand-off to the MCE.

Figure LRE

Inside LRE

 Airborne Data relays: The airborne data relay (ADR) is a modular relay payload that is
mounted in the aerial vehicle serving as a relay between the Mission control element and the
mission aerial vehicle. The ADR will relay command data from the MCE to the mission aerial
vehicle and shall relay command and payload data from the mission aerial vehicle to the relay
aerial vehicle and then to the MCE. The ADR allows the mission aerial vehicle to fly in
excess of the line of sight constraints imposed by the MCE by allowing all commands to be
passed to the relay aerial vehicle to the mission aerial vehicle. The ADR can be installed in
addition to the modular mission payload.
  Remote receiving terminals: A Remote Terminal is used to provide:

 an interface between the MIL-STD-1553B data bus and an attached subsystem

 a bridge between a MIL-STD-1553B bus and another MIL-STD-1553B bus.

For example, in a tracked vehicle, a Remote Terminal might acquire data from an inertial
navigational subsystem, and send that data over a 1553 data bus to another Remote Terminal,
for display on a crew instrument. Simpler examples of Remote Terminals might be interfaces
that switch on the headlights, the landing lights, in an aircraft.

 Electro optical Payloads: Real time payloads offer significant intelligence power and
facilitate instant command decisions at every level. These includes daylight TV, forward
looking infra-red (FLIR), infra-red line scanner (IRLS) . With help of Electro optical payloads
information can be gathered in minutes and sent to concerned authority. Generally UAV is
equipped with two cameras one at tail and other one at nose. Tail camera is used to fly the
UAV. Nose camera is used for reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition. In Non-
Real Time Payloads. Payloads data can be recovered and studied only after the UAV returns.
These include mini-pan still camera and videocassette recorder.

 Electronic payload: UAV can be equipped with ocean of electronic payloads according to
mission. But for surveillance purpose basic electronic components which are required are
discussed in following section.

Synthetic aperture RADAR (SAR): SAR is an all-weather RADAR. Its operational mode
capabilities are side looking, spot and moving target indication. Wide band intercept relay is
Electronic Surveillance (ES) system that provides real time location and identification of
targets for battlefield information collection and control. Survivor radio repeater system is
used for search and rescue missions. Electronic Warfare Sensors (EW) is a very useful sensor,
which can immensely enlarge EW capabilities. An UAV can also carry variety of jammers
like chaff or deception jammer to saturate enemy radar preceding manned flights or small
reflectors so that UAV signature matches that of an air craft to draw enemy fire.

3. The Autopilot

In small UAVs a medium-big MCU from 64 KB upwards can host the autopilot's software. In
big UAV systems a full PC can be found. The Autopilot reads data from the sensors (IMU,
GPS and others) and has the responsibility of governing all the airplane flight controls
(ailerons, flaps, elevator, ruder and motor throttle/ thrust) to keep the plane flying in the way
it is programmed (for example in a flash memory or SD card).

The Autopilot is a control system, so Control Theory comes up. The basic scheme of a
control loop (for one variable) is this:

 Reference: also called set point. It is the desired value of the controlled variable
(system output).
 Measured error: Difference between measured and reference values.
 Controller: gives an output that will bring the error to zero.
 System: It is the airplane control plus the airplane response characteristic.
 Sensor: One of the elements that measure back the variable to control.

But in a UAV, different variables have to be controlled simultaneously (pitch angle, bank
angle, heading and speed at least) and control actuations affect to more than one of these
variables (for example rudder controls heading but also banks the plane).

While basic, hobbyist UAV systems have a number of independent basic PID controllers,
robust and true UAV systems have more advanced control schemes like state space controls,
adaptive controls, etc.