A Dynamically Reconfiguring Avionics

The goal of this research is to develop a framework for the design and implementation of reliable avionics and control architectures for UAVs. The approach is based on composing UAV control systems as software modules with explicit dependencies and possibly multiple implementations of individual modules with different resource requirements. A run-time manager analyzes the dependencies, resource requirements, and available resources to determine what tasks and which versions of individual tasks to schedule. This approach allows architectures that can adapt to both hardware and software failures by reducing the quality of the processing, the rate of processing, or by eliminating some non-critical functions instead of having to terminate the mission. This paper introduces the approach and discusses the past and future application of the techniques to UAVs developed at the University of Kentucky. I