Modeling and Analysis of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System Leveraging Systems Modeling Language (SysML)

Abstract

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has seen a significant increase over time in several industries such as defense, healthcare, and agriculture to name a few. Their affordability has made it possible for industries to venture and invest in UAVs for both research and commercial purposes. In spite of their recent popularity; there remain a number of difficulties in the design representation of UAVs, including low image analysis, high cost, and time consumption. In addition, it is challenging to represent systems of systems that require multiple UAVs to work in cooperation, sharing resources, and complementing other assets on the ground or in the air. As a means of compensating for these difficulties; in this study; we use a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) approach, in which standardized diagrams are used to model and design different systems and subsystems of UAVs. SysML is widely used to support the design and analysis of many different kinds of systems and ensures consistency between the design of the system and its documentation through the use of an object-oriented model. In addition, SysML supports the modeling of both hardware and software, which will ease the representation of both the system’s architecture and flow of information. The following paper will follow the Magic Grid methodology to model a UAV system across the SysML four pillars and integration of SysML model with external script-based simulation tools, namely, MATLAB and OpenMDAO. These pillars are expressed within standard diagram views to describe the structural, behavior, requirements, and parametric aspect of the UAV. Finally, the paper will demonstrate how to utilize the simulation capability of the SysML model to verify a functional requirement.