Unmanned aerial vehicle flight management system digital virtual prototype and design and simulation method thereof

Abstract

The invention relates to the field of unmanned aerial vehicle system testing, and discloses an unmanned aerial vehicle flight management system digital virtual prototype and a design and simulation method thereof. The flight management system digital virtual prototype is a virtual prototype capable of being deployed in a redundancy mode and comprises an interface module, a redundancy module, a control law module, a guidance law module, a task execution module and a synchronization module. The interface module is used for integrating all external interfaces involved in physical flight management computer platform equipment management to complete external interaction of signals; the redundancy module, the control law module and the guidance law module are used for respectively completing the transplantation of redundancy management, a control law algorithm and a guidance law algorithm in the real object flight management computer, and interacting with the interface module; the task execution module completes transplantation of Bit linkage logic and task scheduling related algorithms of a real object flight management computer and realizes periodic operation of a virtual prototype; and the synchronization module is used for simulating hardware to provide accurate clock signals and ensuring the synchronism among the virtual prototypes.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system testing, and specifically to a digital virtual prototype of an UAV flight control system and its design and simulation method. Background Technology

[0002] During ground testing, UAV flight control systems primarily utilize semi-physical test bench environments, which presents challenges such as long system iteration cycles, low fault injection coverage, complex software functions that cannot be fully tested across the entire system, difficulty in implementing special tests (performance boundaries, destructive testing, etc.), and high costs associated with physical prototypes. Summary of the Invention

[0003] The main technical problem solved by this invention is to provide a digital virtual prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control system and its design and simulation method, which is used for the virtual design and simulation of UAV flight control systems. This method can improve the R&D efficiency of UAV flight control systems and, in view of the complex functions of UAV flight control systems, solve the problems of being unable to traverse system tests and the difficulty in implementing special tests.

[0004] This invention proposes a digital virtual prototype for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control system. This digital virtual prototype is a redundancy-deployable virtual prototype, which includes an interface module, a redundancy module, a control law module, a guidance law module, a task execution module, and a synchronization module. The interface module integrates all external interfaces involved in the physical flight control computer platform equipment management, and completes the external interaction of signals; The redundancy module, control law module, and guidance law module respectively ported the redundancy management, control law algorithm, and guidance law algorithm from the physical flight control computer, and interacted with the interface module. The task execution module completes the porting of the physical flight control computer's bit interlocking logic and task scheduling related algorithms, enabling the virtual prototype to run periodically. The synchronization module is used to simulate the hardware to provide a precise clock signal, ensuring synchronization between virtual prototypes.

[0005] This invention also provides a design method for a digital virtual prototype of an air traffic control system, comprising: 1) First, modify the embedded system and internal bus in the physical flight controller computer, remove the original flight controller code and its related functions from the hardware and system, and shield them, retaining only the actual functions to obtain the modified function functions; 2) Secondly, the Bit interlocking logic in the physical flight control computer calls these modified function functions again to realize various self-test logics of the UAV flight control system, forming the self-test task part of the virtual prototype task execution framework module; 3) Map the hardware address offsets of different external devices in the platform device management of the physical flight control computer to the network offset, and perform unified data packetization to realize the original bus transmission and reception of various external devices to network UDP transmission and reception, forming the interface module part of the virtual prototype. 4) In the guidance law and control law sections of the physical flight control computer, the modified function functions are called again to form the control law module and guidance law module of the virtual prototype; in the remote control and telemetry section of the physical flight control computer, the modified function functions are called to form the remote control and telemetry section of the virtual prototype mission execution framework module. 5) Finally, the virtual prototype task execution framework re-schedules the self-test task part, remote control and telemetry part, control law module and guidance law module according to the original cycle task process of the physical flight control computer to form a complete flight control computer cycle task, and performs real-time data interaction with the UAV virtual simulation system through the interface module.

[0006] Furthermore, when the virtual prototype is redundant, the design method further includes: The redundancy management function in the physical flight control computer calls the modified function to form the redundancy module of the UAV virtual digital prototype; the redundancy module completes the redundancy voting task and fault result reporting of the multi-redundancy virtual prototype.

[0007] Furthermore, when the virtual prototype is redundant, the design method further includes: The design incorporates a strong timing clock service, simulating the flight tube hardware to provide a precise clock signal and mapping it to the corresponding shared memory address. The task execution framework scans this shared memory address to ensure the synchronization of task execution among the single-redundancy virtual prototypes.

[0008] The present invention also provides a simulation method for a digital virtual prototype of an air traffic control system, which is implemented through a UAV virtual simulation system. The UAV virtual simulation system includes an aircraft simulation module, a digital model module, a remote control and telemetry module, an automatic testing module, and a data acquisition and analysis module. The data acquisition and analysis module and the remote control and telemetry module communicate with the virtual prototype via UDP and send the data to the internal shared memory network. Some data enters the various UAV external sensor models in the digital model module and interacts with the aircraft simulation module to execute the aircraft closed-loop mission. The automatic test module calls UAV data through shared memory to perform various tests and generate test reports.

[0009] Furthermore, the simulation method for a digital virtual prototype of an air traffic control system specifically includes: 1) The data acquisition and analysis module first communicates with the interface module of the virtual prototype via the UDP protocol, extracts periodic data packets 1 from the shared memory and sends them to the interface module of the virtual prototype, and receives periodic data packets 2 sent by the interface module of the virtual prototype and maps them into the shared memory for use by other modules. 2) The digital model module simulates the electrical and mathematical characteristics of various onboard sensors, forms a transfer function, combines it with the data in the shared memory network, generates the input of the aircraft model, and maps it into the shared memory; 3) The remote control and telemetry module communicates with the interface module of the virtual prototype through the UDP protocol to form remote control data packets and telemetry data packets, thereby realizing remote control of the UAV and sending the test commands for the UAV's aircraft control law. The remote control and telemetry module maps all data into shared memory for use by other modules. 4) The aircraft simulation module loads the actual 6-DOF model of the aircraft, calls the input data of various sensors generated by the digital model module in the shared memory, generates various operation commands, maps them into the shared memory, and interacts with the virtual prototype through the data acquisition and analysis module to complete the testing of the UAV closed-loop test items.

[0010] Furthermore, when simulating a redundant virtual prototype, the simulation method further includes: The automated testing module converts the test items of the redundant virtual prototype into Python scripts, obtains the test data through shared memory, calls the test scripts, completes the automated testing, and outputs the corresponding test report.

[0011] The beneficial effects of this invention are as follows: A digital virtual testing method for UAV flight control systems is designed. This method can complete digital virtual testing of UAV flight control systems, providing a fast, automatic, and comprehensive testing approach. It shortens testing time, reduces testing costs, improves fault analysis capabilities, and enables testing of special functions of flight control systems. This method is easy to deploy and implement, not difficult to implement, and low in cost, and has already been put into scientific research practice. Attached Figure Description

[0012] To more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention or the prior art, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly introduced below. The drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present invention. For those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without creative effort.

[0013] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the virtual digital prototype structure of the UAV of the present invention; Figure 2 This is a diagram of the synchronization module structure; Figure 3 This is a virtual simulation structure diagram of a drone. Detailed Implementation

[0014] The present invention will be further described in detail below with reference to the embodiments and accompanying drawings, but the embodiments of the present invention are not limited thereto.

[0015] The technical solutions of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention.

[0016] This invention proposes a digital virtual testing method for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control systems.

[0017] This method is mainly divided into two parts: the UAV virtual digital prototype part and the UAV virtual simulation part.

[0018] The UAV virtual digital prototype is a redundant flight control virtual digital prototype. This prototype possesses the complete functional attributes of a flight control computer, primarily including interface modules, redundancy modules, control law modules, guidance law modules, mission execution frameworks, and synchronization modules. The virtual digital prototype simulates the communication of external devices as virtual links, enabling virtual communication with all external devices connected to the flight control computer. It simulates and acquires relevant signals, and through real-time environmental operation, combined with redundancy synchronous deployment technology, it achieves the construction of a redundant flight control digital virtual prototype.

[0019] The virtual digital prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) primarily involves modifying the existing single-redundant embedded internal modules and structure of a physical flight control computer. It can be divided into an interface module, a redundancy module, a control law module, a guidance law module, a mission execution framework, and a synchronization module. The interface module integrates all external interfaces involved in the original flight control computer platform's equipment management, enabling external signal interaction. The redundancy, control law, and guidance law modules respectively port the redundancy management, control law algorithm, and guidance law algorithm from the UAV flight control computer and interact with the interface module. The mission execution module portes the original flight control computer's bit interlocking logic and mission scheduling-related algorithms, enabling the virtual digital prototype's periodic operation.

[0020] The UAV virtual simulation component comprises all external virtual devices interconnected with the UAV virtual digital prototype. It mainly includes an aircraft simulation module, a digital model module, a remote control and telemetry module, an automatic testing module, and a data acquisition and analysis module. The UAV virtual simulation uses a UDP network. The data acquisition and analysis module collects and simulates all signals interconnected with the external network of the UAV virtual digital prototype, loads relevant models, and sends them to the automatic testing module via a shared memory network to complete the open-loop and closed-loop testing of the UAV flight control system. The data acquisition and analysis module and the remote control and telemetry module of the UAV virtual simulation communicate with the UAV virtual digital prototype via UDP and send the data to the internal shared memory network. Some data enters various UAV external sensor models in the mathematical model module and interacts with the aircraft simulation module to execute closed-loop aircraft tasks. The automatic testing module calls UAV data through shared memory to perform various tests and generate test reports. Example 1: This embodiment presents a digital virtual testing method for a UAV flight control system, used for closed-loop testing of the control law of a small, single-redundant UAV. The specific implementation method is as follows: 1. The implementation of virtual digital prototypes for drones mainly includes: 1) Figure 1 In this process, the embedded system and internal bus of the physical flight controller computer are modified first. The original flight controller code and its related functions are removed from the hardware and system and masked, retaining only the actual functions, thus completing the modification of each function of the flight controller computer.

[0021] 2) Secondly, the Bit chain logic calls these modified functions again to implement various self-test logics of the UAV flight management system, forming the self-test task part of the UAV virtual digital prototype task execution framework module.

[0022] 3) Map the hardware address offsets of different external devices in the platform device management to the network offsets, and perform unified data packetization to change the original bus transmission and reception of various external devices to network UDP transmission and reception, forming the interface module part of the UAV virtual digital prototype.

[0023] 4) The guidance and control laws in the physical flight control computer are re-invoked using the modified function functions to form the control and guidance law modules of the UAV virtual digital prototype. The remote control and telemetry functions are also re-invoked using the modified function functions to form the remote control and telemetry part of the UAV virtual digital prototype mission execution framework module.

[0024] 5) Finally, the mission execution framework re-schedules the self-test task, remote control and telemetry, control law module, and guidance law module according to the original cycle task flow of the physical flight control computer, forming a complete cycle task of the flight control computer, and interacts with the UAV virtual simulation system in real time through the interface module.

[0025] 2. The implementation of the UAV virtual simulation system mainly includes: 1) The data acquisition and analysis module first communicates with the interface module of the virtual digital prototype via the UDP protocol, extracts periodic data packets 1 from the shared memory and sends them to the interface module of the virtual digital prototype, and receives periodic data packets 2 sent by the interface module of the virtual digital prototype and maps them into the shared memory for use by other modules.

[0026] 2) The digital model module simulates the electrical and mathematical characteristics of various onboard sensors, forms a transfer function, combines it with the data in the shared memory network, generates the input of the aircraft model, and maps it into the shared memory.

[0027] 3) The remote control and telemetry module communicates with the interface module of the virtual digital prototype via the UDP protocol, generating remote control data packets and telemetry data packets to remotely control the UAV and send aircraft control law test commands such as takeoff, hovering, acceleration, and flight path loading. The remote control and telemetry module maps all data to shared memory for use by other modules.

[0028] 4) The aircraft model module loads the actual 6-DOF aircraft model, calls the input data of various sensors in the shared memory (mapped and generated by the mathematical model module), generates various operation commands, maps them to the shared memory, and interacts with the UAV virtual digital prototype through the data acquisition and analysis module to complete the test of the UAV control law and guidance law closed-loop test items.

[0029] Example 2: This embodiment presents a digital virtual testing method for a UAV flight control system, used for the automatic testing of medium-sized redundant UAVs. The specific implementation method is as follows: 1. The implementation of virtual digital prototypes for drones mainly includes: 1) Figure 1 First, the embedded system and internal bus in the physical flight controller computer are modified. The original flight controller code and its related functions are removed from the hardware and system and masked, retaining only the actual functions. This completes the modification of the functions of each function of the single-redundant CPU of the flight controller computer.

[0030] 2) The Bit chain logic re-calls these modified functions to implement various self-test logics of the UAV flight management system, forming the self-test task part of the UAV virtual digital prototype task execution framework module.

[0031] 3) Map the hardware address offsets of different external devices in the platform device management to the network offsets, and perform unified data packetization to change the original bus transmission and reception of various external devices to network UDP transmission and reception, forming the interface module part of the UAV virtual digital prototype.

[0032] 4) The guidance and control laws in the physical flight control computer are re-invoked using the modified function functions to form the control and guidance law modules of the UAV virtual digital prototype. The remote control and telemetry functions are also re-invoked using the modified function functions to form the remote control and telemetry part of the UAV virtual digital prototype mission execution framework module.

[0033] 5) The mission execution framework is redesigned according to the original cyclic mission flow of the physical flight control computer, scheduling the self-test mission part, remote control and telemetry part, control law module, and guidance law module to form a single-redundant flight control computer cyclic mission, and interacting with the UAV virtual simulation system in real time through the interface module.

[0034] 6) The redundancy management function in the physical flight control computer calls the modified function to form the redundancy module of the UAV virtual digital prototype; Figure 2 In this design, a strong timing clock service is implemented, simulating the flight control unit hardware to provide a precise clock signal and mapping it to a corresponding shared memory address. The task execution framework scans this shared memory address to ensure the synchronization of task execution among the single-redundancy virtual digital prototypes. The redundancy module completes the redundancy voting task and fault result reporting for the multi-redundancy flight control unit computer.

[0035] 2. The implementation of the UAV virtual simulation system mainly includes: 1) The data acquisition and analysis module first communicates with the interface module of the redundant virtual digital prototype through the UDP protocol, sends periodic data packet 1, receives periodic data packet 2, and maps the periodic packet data into shared memory for use by other modules.

[0036] 2) The digital model module simulates the electrical and mathematical characteristics of various onboard sensors, forms a transfer function, combines it with the data in the shared memory network, generates the input of the aircraft model, and maps it into the shared memory.

[0037] 3) The remote control and telemetry module communicates with the interface module of the redundant virtual digital prototype via the UDP protocol, forming remote control data packets and telemetry data packets to remotely control the UAV and send test commands for aircraft control laws such as takeoff, hovering, acceleration, and flight path loading. The remote control and telemetry module maps all data to shared memory for use by other modules.

[0038] 4) The aircraft model module loads the actual 6-DOF aircraft model, calls the input data of various sensors in the shared memory (mapped and generated by the mathematical model module), generates various operation commands, maps them to the shared memory, and interacts with the UAV virtual digital prototype through the data acquisition and analysis module to complete the test of the UAV control law closed-loop test items.

[0039] 5) The automatic testing module converts the redundant UAV test items into Python scripts, obtains the test data through shared memory, calls the test scripts, completes the automatic test, and outputs the corresponding test report.

[0040] This invention provides a digital virtual testing method for UAV flight management systems. By customizing a virtualized flight management computer architecture and designing a solution framework suitable for the unique R&D architecture of airborne code, this method is designed for functional verification testing of UAV flight management systems. It includes interface consistency testing, guidance law testing, control law testing, redundancy management testing, and emergency fault handling. This method migrates the execution mode of the UAV flight management system from embedded hardware to a direct execution mode in a virtual environment, and enables cross-linking with other external models. It also creates an automated testing toolchain, optimizes testing methods, and improves the R&D efficiency of UAV flight management systems.

[0041] The above detailed embodiments are a description of the present invention. It should not be considered that the specific embodiments of the present invention are limited to these descriptions. For those skilled in the art, several simple deductions and substitutions can be made without departing from the concept of the present invention, and all of these should be considered to fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A digital virtual prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control system, characterized in that, The digital virtual prototype of the flight control system is a redundancy-deployable virtual prototype, which includes an interface module, a redundancy module, a control law module, a guidance law module, a mission execution module, and a synchronization module. The interface module integrates all external interfaces involved in the physical flight control computer platform equipment management, and completes the external interaction of signals; The redundancy module, control law module, and guidance law module respectively ported the redundancy management, control law algorithm, and guidance law algorithm from the physical flight control computer, and interacted with the interface module. The task execution module completes the porting of the physical flight control computer's bit interlocking logic and task scheduling related algorithms, enabling the virtual prototype to run periodically. The synchronization module is used to simulate the hardware to provide a precise clock signal, ensuring synchronization between virtual prototypes.

2. A design method for a digital virtual prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control system, characterized in that, For designing the digital virtual prototype as described in claim 1, comprising: 1) First, modify the embedded system and internal bus in the physical flight controller computer, remove the original flight controller code and its related functions from the hardware and system, and shield them, retaining only the actual functions to obtain the modified function functions; 2) Secondly, the Bit interlocking logic in the physical flight control computer calls these modified function functions again to realize various self-test logics of the UAV flight control system, forming the self-test task part of the virtual prototype task execution framework module; 3) Map the hardware address offsets of different external devices in the platform device management of the physical flight control computer to the network offset, and perform unified data packetization to realize the original bus transmission and reception of various external devices to network UDP transmission and reception, forming the interface module part of the virtual prototype. 4) In the guidance law and control law section of the physical flight control computer, the modified function functions are called again to form the control law module and guidance law module of the virtual prototype; in the remote control and telemetry section of the physical flight control computer, the modified function functions are called to form the remote control and telemetry section of the virtual prototype mission execution framework module.

3. The design method for a digital virtual prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control system according to claim 2, characterized in that, The design methodology for digital virtual prototypes also includes: 5) The virtual prototype task execution framework re-follows the original cycle task flow of the physical flight control computer, scheduling the self-test task part, remote control and telemetry part, control law module, and guidance law module to form a complete flight control computer cycle task, and interacts with the UAV virtual simulation system in real time through the interface module.

4. The design method for a digital virtual prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control system according to claim 3, characterized in that, When the virtual prototype is redundant, the design method further includes: The redundancy management function in the physical flight control computer calls the modified function to form the redundancy module of the UAV virtual digital prototype; the redundancy module completes the redundancy voting task and fault result reporting of the multi-redundancy virtual prototype.

5. The design method for a digital virtual prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control system according to claim 4, characterized in that, When the virtual prototype is redundant, the design method further includes: The design incorporates a strong timing clock service, simulating the flight tube hardware to provide a precise clock signal and mapping it to the corresponding shared memory address. The task execution framework scans this shared memory address to ensure the synchronization of task execution among the single-redundancy virtual prototypes.

6. A simulation method for a digital virtual prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control system, characterized in that, This is achieved through a drone virtual simulation system, which includes an aircraft simulation module, a digital model module, a remote control and telemetry module, an automatic testing module, and a data acquisition and analysis module. The data acquisition and analysis module and the remote control and telemetry module communicate with the virtual prototype via UDP and send the data to the internal shared memory network. Some data enters the various UAV external sensor models in the digital model module and interacts with the aircraft simulation module to execute the aircraft closed-loop mission. The automatic test module calls UAV data through shared memory to perform various tests and generate test reports.

7. The simulation method for a digital virtual prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control system according to claim 6, characterized in that, The simulation method for the digital virtual prototype specifically includes: 1) The data acquisition and analysis module first communicates with the interface module of the virtual prototype via the UDP protocol, extracts periodic data packets 1 from the shared memory and sends them to the interface module of the virtual prototype, and receives periodic data packets 2 sent by the interface module of the virtual prototype and maps them into the shared memory for use by other modules. 2) The digital model module simulates the electrical and mathematical characteristics of various onboard sensors, forms a transfer function, combines it with the data in the shared memory network, generates the input of the aircraft model, and maps it into the shared memory; 3) The remote control and telemetry module communicates with the interface module of the virtual prototype through the UDP protocol to form remote control data packets and telemetry data packets, thereby realizing remote control of the UAV and sending the test commands for the UAV's aircraft control law. The remote control and telemetry module maps all data into shared memory for use by other modules. 4) The aircraft simulation module loads the actual 6-DOF model of the aircraft, calls the input data of various sensors generated by the digital model module in the shared memory, generates various operation commands, maps them into the shared memory, and interacts with the virtual prototype through the data acquisition and analysis module to complete the testing of the UAV closed-loop test items.

8. The simulation method for a digital virtual prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight control system according to claim 7, characterized in that, When simulating a redundant virtual prototype, the simulation method further includes: The automated testing module converts the test items of the redundant virtual prototype into Python scripts, obtains the test data through shared memory, calls the test scripts, completes the automated testing, and outputs the corresponding test report.

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