Establishment of Real-Time Simulation Test Environment for Electric Propulsion System of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Using KDECAN Communication

Abstract

This paper proposes the construction of a real-time simulation testing environment for the electric propulsion systems of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) using a real-time simulator and KDECAN communication equipment. The proposed real-time simulation environment enables the testing of flight controllers and control algorithms using real-time control communication commands that are identical to those used during actual flight. The KDECAN protocol is analyzed and utilized in the proposed real-time simulation environment for control communication. A reduced-size lift–cruise UAV with eight lift motors (for takeoff) and one cruise motor (for cruising) is used as the target hardware for real-time simulation. This is used to verify the construction of the real-time simulation environment. The final goal of this work is to construct a real-time simulation environment for the stable application of propeller-driven devices, and the findings confirm the independent operation of the lift and cruise motors in the constructed testing environment. Additionally, the real-time monitoring of the state of the electronic speed controllers is verified, suggesting that the testing environment can be utilized as a verification tool for the control algorithms and system design data of electric propulsion systems in actual devices in the future.