Proceedings of the ASME 2009 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences &

Computers and Information in Engineering Conference

IDETC/CIE 2009
August 30 - September 2, 2009, San Diego, California, USA
Proceedings of the ASME 2009 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences &
Computers and Information in Engineering Conference
IDETC/CIE 2009
August 30-September 2, 2009, San Diego, USA

DETC2009-87671

DETC2009/MESA-87671

AGGIEAIR: AN INTEGRATED AND EFFECTIVE SMALL MULTI-UAV COMMAND,

CONTROL AND DATA COLLECTION ARCHITECTURE

Calvin Coopmans and Yiding Han

Center for Self-Organizing and Intelligent Systems (CSOIS),
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department,
Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322 4120, USA
E-mails: {cal.coopmans, yiding.h}@aggiemail.usu.edu

ABSTRACT
Small UAV performance depends on an effective and efficient command system architecture. Based on an existing UAV
system called Paparazzi, AggieAir is a full flight system capable
of handling single or multiple UAVs with single or multiple payloads per airframe. System-level block diagrams are presented
and specific details about implementation and results are provided.

ent sizes, types and configurations of UAV is developed for the

specific application.
Generally speaking, the autonomous UAV system consists
of automatic pilot system, navigation system that includes a wide
variety of sensors, on-board microcomputer system as the data
hub and ground control station that monitors and changes flight
mission in real time.
In the Center of Self-Organizing and Intelligent System
(CSOIS) at Utah State University, miniature fixed-wing autonomous UAVs are developed for civil applications, such as water management, irrigation control, highway mapping, etc. The
UAVs we developed are equipped with light-weighted multispectral high-resolution optical imager for aerial images within reconfigurable bands [3].
This paper presents a novel hardware and software architecture. AggieAir is fundamentally based on a proven system architecture: that of a real aircraft. Fig. shows a simplified version of
this hierarchy, allowing specific mission tasks and goals. On the
ground, the Flight Commander (a human, in the AggieAir system), oversees the whole mission as it progresses. The Science
Team is also on the ground, monitoring data and controlling experiments on the plane in real time.

NOMENCLATURE
UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.
IMU Inertial Measurement Unit. Typically a 3-axis roll rate
gyro co-axial with a 3-axis accelerometer.
INS Inertial Navigation System. Suggests a combination of
IMU and other senors such as GPS via a software filter.

INTRODUCTION
An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is a complex aircraft
system that is able to navigate without the control of a pilot.
The inception of UAVs traces back to the World War I, which
was primarily for military applications. However, its entry into
the civil/commercial market is barely until the last few decades.
There is increasing interest in developing UAV systems for variety of civil applications such as traffic control, border patrol, firefighting management [1], agriculture monitoring [2], etc. Differ-

FUNCTIONALITY
AggieAir is a system with many parts and details. Overall,
the aero-team paradigm can be seen illustrated in Fig. 1 Each
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CSOIS AggieAir Software Block Diagram

Airframe
AggieNav

Gumstix Flight Software (Separate Processes)

IMU, Compass, GPS,

Pressure, Temperature
UART

SPI

GCS C+C
Downlink Radio

Payload #1
GhostFoto

GCS + Payload Message

Bus

AggiePilot (PPRZ)
Autopilot + Command and
Control Radio Link+
Standard timebase for all
data
GCS + Payload Message
Bus

AggieCap
{Fractional, Extended}
Kalman Filter
GPos+LPos Data Server

Payload #2
Ethernet + Local
JAUS
GPos+LPos+Payload
Message Socket Interface

UART

PPRZ C+C Link

High-Bandwidth WiFi Datalink

Ground Control Station

GCS C+C Uplink

Radio

UART

BlackBox Flight
Recorder/
Thermal Camera/
Other Payload

GCS Computer #2

GCS Computer #1
PPRZ GCS +
JAUS

GhostEye Interface
gRAID Interface

GCS + Payload Message

Bus

GCS Computer #3
Thernal Camera
Interface
Etc.

Ethernet + Local
JAUS
GPos+LPos+Payload
Message Socket Interface

Figure 2.

AGGIEAIR DETAILED BLOCK DIAGRAM

Airborne

This diagram shows some of the nuances of the AggieAir system.

AggieCap
(Captian)

Payload{1, 2, ...}

AggieNav
(Navigator)

DATA FLOW

Papazazzi (Pilot)

Command + Telemetry Link

Fig. 3 shows the data flow hierarchy of the system architecture. This allows for many system configurations depending
on the complexity and/or cost demands of the mission at hand.
For instance, a particular mission could demand only AggiePilot and AggieNav for basic navigation and flight path following.
AggieCap and the other parts of the system are not required and
could therefore be left out of the system. One more level could
be added; AggieCaps payload management could be demanded
without the need for the WiFi data link and this could easily be
left out of the mission. The full system could be also implemented easily if demanded.

Payload Data Link

Flight
Commander

Payload Team(s)

Ground

Figure 1.

AGGIEAIR AERO-TEAM BLOCK DIAGRAM

part of the system has its respective role; even the humans on the
ground. A much more detailed system block diagram is Fig. 2.
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Increasing System
Complexity
Payload Payload
#1
#2

Offboard
Payload(s) via
Mesh Network

AggieCap
AggieNav
AggiePilot
AggieAir
Groundstation

Figure 3.

Payload
Groundstation

AGGIEAIR DATA FLOW HIERARCHY

2.4GHZ WIFI COMMUNICATION LINK

Figure 5. WIFI GROUNDSTATION: 14DBi, 160 SECTORIAL ANTENNA WITH BULLET2-HP

Figure 4. UBIQUITY BULLET2-HP MODIFIED FOR SMALL UAV

FLIGHT WITH 5.5DBi ANTENNA

CSOIS has developed a high-bandwidth 2.4GHz WiFi

comms link for use with single or multiple UAVs and ground
stations. Designed to be inexpensive and easily constructed,
this link is based on lightweight (80g w/ antenna), high-power
(800mW), inexpensive ($70), carrier-class WiFi units manufactured by Ubiquity Wireless [5], known as the Bullet2-HP.
These units are employed on both ends of the data link, and have
been tested at more than 1 mile range to provide greater than
400KB/sec and up to 1.6MB/sec transfer speeds depending on
antenna orientation. These Bullets have been modified for flight

Figure 6.

GAIN PATTERN OF SECTORIAL ANTENNA FROM [4]

by the replacement of the heavy integrated N-male RF connector

and plastic case with a hard-soldered, short LMR-400 co-axial
pigtail and a standard 5.5Dbi monopole WiFi antenna (Fig. 4).
A power-over-Ethernet (POE) splice cable allows the airborne
Bullet unit to integrate with the onboard UAV Lithium-ion bat3

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tery supply as well as the Gumstix flight computer.

The ground station network is connected to the WiFi network via a 14Dbi sector antenna [6] (pictured in Fig. 5, giving
the WiFi link a wide horizontal angle, tested to function well at
+-80 degrees from center. A vertical gain pattern of 20 degrees
allows complete coverage of the long-range UAV area.
The alternative WiFi operating system DD-WRT [7] supports Bullet2-HP units. DD-WRT is a Linux-based operating
system with many capabilities, not the least of which is support for OLSR, the Open-Source Link State Routing protocol [8].
OLSR creates an Ad-hoc WiFi mesh network by manipulating
the Linux kernel routing table based on the status of the wireless
network topology, allowing for a flexible UAV flying mesh such
as implemented in [9].

junction with other protocols such as ssh [13], for reasons of airborne CPU load and bandwidth the data is sent in an unencrypted
stream via the standard rsync protocol.

START
Ping Airframe

No
Sleep 5 Seconds

2 ICMP
Responses?

Yes
Start rsync
Command
Download Data
(delete source)
Sleep 3 Seconds

JAUS
JAUS, the Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems, is a
comprehensive, cross-platform command and control architecture designed for interoperability and is a standard for US military unmanned systems. It is ideal for architectures and systems such as AggieAir, and allows for well-tested packet-based
transmission of critical data such as airframe pose or payload
status. Implementations of JAUS vary in price and licensing;
the AggieAir system uses OpenJaus [10], a free and open-source
implementation of the JAUS system. While JAUS is ideal for
command and control applications, it is not a particularly good
choice for transmission of data from sensors or other payloads,
and AggieAir therefore uses other protocols (such as rsync) for
data such as aerial images.

Figure 7.

RSYNC DATA COLLECTION SCRIPT FLOWCHART

Fig. 7 shows the logic flowchart for collection of data via

rsync. Note that in this case, rsync has been configured to remove
the remote data after downlink to the ground, since each iteration
could take progressively more time to index the source data files
if they are not cleaned each loop iteration. Also, rsync is used
in Backup mode so it will not overwrite files that have identical
names in case a naming collision occurs (caused by the resetting
of the flight computer or crashing of a payload, for instance). In
this way, we have made a reliable, cross-platform data collection
system using established software.

AGGIEPILOT
Paparazzi is an open-source autopilot developed by
aerospace students at ENAC University in France [14]. CSOIS
has been using Paparazzi for more than two years [15], to much
success. In the AggieAir architecture, the Paparazzi system has
been augmented with a JAUS data channel to become AggiePilot,
allowing JAUS packets to be transmitted to and from the UAV(s)
while in flight. This allows for a useful amount of JAUS command and control data to be sent over the UAVs normal control
link, up to 10 miles away.

RSYNC FOR DATA TRANSFER

Currently the best method for transferring arbitrarily large
data sets over unstable links such as the WiFi link in AggieAir
is the rsync protocol. rsync is an open-source utility that allows
for fast incremental file transfer [11], allowing files transfers to
be interrupted by poor quality data links and resumed later when
the link as been restored. A simple Bash wrapper script allows
the Payload Ground Station to asynchronously request the data
files from the airborne processor and save them on the ground for
further processing or analysis. In this way, the ground network
can re-target or change a UAVs behaviour based on any number
of human or machine decisions.
rsync is currently implemented in AggieAir on the Windows
XP operating system via Cygwin [12], but a small section of
code changes the ping syntax and allows the same script to
operate on multiple Unix variants as well as Windows. The assumed behavior of the airborne payload is continuing production
of separate data files (discrete images), however this technique
will also perform nicely with growing-length data files with different options (see below). Although rsync can be used in con-

AGGIENAV NAVIGATION SENSOR SUITE

AggieNav is a small, accurate, low-cost, tightly-integrated
UAV navigation sensor INS suite [16]. Fig. 8 shows a system block diagram. AggieNav serves as the Navigator in the
aerial team paradigm, and provides the Captain and with realtime global pose data from a 6-DoF IMU, GPS and compass
module, as well as dual pressure sensors for estimation of altitude and airspeed via [17]. AggieNav also serves as a replay
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Gumstix
Verdex Linux
System

5.0V; 3.3V
Switching
Regulators

uBlox
LEA-5H
GPS Receiver

User
Interface
(LEDs,
Buttons)

Atmel
AVR32A256B
Microcontroller

External
Data
Interfaces
(TTL-Serial;
SPI Slave)

Honywell
HMC6343
3-axis
Magnetic
Compass

Analog
Devices
ADIS1654
6-DoF IMU

VTI
SCP-1000
Pressure
Sensors (x2)

Figure 8.

Papazazzi
TWOG
Autopilot
Board

Figure 11. GHOSTFOTO CCD CAMERA, MODIFIED FROM CANON

POWERSHOT SX100 IS

AGGIENAV HARDWARE BLOCK DIAGRAM

navigation. AggieNav then passes the filtered data along to AggiePilot, allowing the system to function with the best navigation
performance, however AggieNav has enough processing power
(70MIPS) to allow a fallback/failsafe mode (Fig. 10 if the Gumstix computer should fail or not be required for a given mission.
If, after 1 second (100 packets), AggieNav does not receive data
from its process on the Gumstix, AggieNav will step in and provide its own data. In this case, the AggieNav processor does
some basic filtering work on the sensor data and passes this data
to AggiePilot in the same manner as the normal system operation, allowing a seamless failover, or minimum flight gear configuration depending on the scenario.

Figure 9.

EXAMPLE PAYLOAD: GHOSTFOTO

GhostFoto (GFoto) is a light-weight cost efficient multispectral imager which operates in both visible and near infrared
(NIR) light wavelengths. The hardware of this payload consists
of RGB and/or NIR CCD cameras, shown in Fig. 11, and Gumstix microprocessor on which a program called GhostEye is running for both controlling and configuring the imagers. GhostEye
also provides an interface between the imager payload and UAV
system, establishing a message and command channel, through
which users are able to monitor and operate the payload during
flight.
Another key functionality of GhostEye is geo-referencing of
the airborne imagery. The orthorectification of the aerial images
is indispensable for the end users that demand for accurate geographic information. For instance, in applications such as target
recognition and ground mapping, the geographic coordinates of
any pixel on the aerial image should be able to be retrieved. By
querying the sensor data, such as the UAV geographic coordinates, and pitch, yaw and roll angle of the plane, GhostEye logs
the geo-referencing information for each image so that they can
be accurately orthorectified. In other word, GhostEye needs to

AGGIENAV HARDWARE WITH GUMSTIX COMPUTER

for filtered data between AggieCap and AggiePilot, with a safety

fallback. As seen in Fig. 9, AggieNav holds and powers the
Gumstix computer.

Fault Line
AggieNav

Gumstix EKF
Process

AggiePilot
Figure 10.

AGGIENAV DATA FILTERING FALLBACK STRUCTURE

AggieNav uses some of the Gumstix CPU time for an advanced Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), allowing for more ideal
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farm (GPS: 41.7978 -111.9296). The image below is orthorectified with the provided geo-referencing data. The image is then
rotated and projected onto globe coordinate with its upper side
pointing North.

CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have demonstrated a novel architecture for
multiple small low-cost fixed wing UAVs. By integrating subsystems including AggieNav, AggiePilot, AggieCap, the AggieAir
architecture offers flexible and reliable support for UAV airborne
payloads designed for different purposes. On the ground, AggieAir architecture provides real time mission control and monitoring of the UAVs, as well as separate payloads. This extensible
architecture has been implemented and tested, and has proven
itself to be a reliable yet sophisticated solution for small UAV
command, control, and data handling.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank all of CSOIS, Professor
YangQuan Chen, Austin Jensen, as well as the Association for
Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) for their Student UAS competitions, and the Utah Water Lab. This work has
been supported by Utah Water Research Laboratory MLF funding (2006-2010).

Figure 12.

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AERIAL IMAGE AND ORTHORECTIFIED IMAGE

have access to these sensor data from the onboard IMU and GPS
module.
This access is enabled in the AggieAir architecture through
AggieCap. AggieCap dispatches the EKF filtered flight data to
JAUS, from which the payload can query for geo-referencing information. The message and control channel of GhostEye is also
managed by AggieCap. The message is sent through AggieNav
to AggiePilot, which communicates with ground station, where
the status of GFoto is monitored.
Airborne imagery can be saved on the memory card in the
cameras, or downloaded from the imager onto Gusmtix, and
hence sent to the Ground Control Station by rsync through the
High-Bandwidth WiFi Datalink. This process allows the ground
station to process the acquired imagery in real time, so that feature based navigation can be implemented in AggieAir architecture.
As an example, Fig. 12 shows an aerial image taken over
Little Bear river near the Utah State University (USU) owned
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