Mixed criticality communication within an unmanned delivery rotorcraft

Abstract

Stand-alone functions additional to a UAV flight-controller, such as safety-relevant flight-path monitoring or payload-monitoring and control, may be SORA-required or advised for specific flight paths of delivery-drones. These functions, articulated as discrete electronic components either internal or external to the main fuselage, can be networked with other on-board electronics systems. Such an integration requires respecting the integrity levels of each component on the network both in terms of function and in terms of power supply. In this body of work we detail an intra-component communication system for small autonomous and semiautonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs.) We discuss the context and the (conservative) design decisions before detailing the hardware and software interfaces and reporting on a first implementation. We finish by drawing conclusions and proposing future work.