Breeze UAV is an open-source autopilot giving any fixed-wing aircraft full autonomous capability. Based on Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller, Breeze provides basics and advanced functions such as automatic takeoff and landing, waypoints navigation, on-board and ground decisions. Components To make fully autonomous flight on any airplane, specific hardware components needs to be embedded. Firstable, a MCU (MicroController Unit) is used as the brain of the UAV. It’s the component which retrieve data, analyse them and then take decisions. Secondly, the UAV needs two kind of information to fly : The euler angles of the UAV in a local referential called the roll, pitch and yaw of the airplane, but also the position and heading. The IMU which is a device which combine a gyroscope and an accelerometer gives real-time attitude with high precision. The GPS gives the position and the heading. Breeze hardware has been selected carefully to either minimize power consumption and give real-time precise data : – An IMU with 10 DOF is used to have gyro and accelerometer data, but also the three-dimensions magnetic field and barometric pressure. Attitude (roll, pitch, yaw) is computed using an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Altitude is computed using the barometric pressure. The reference pressure on the ground is updated using the ground station periodically. The IMU is mounted on a anti-vibration « homemade » shield. The goal is to reduce vibration caused by the motor. Breeze UAV Website: http://breezeuav.com
