A Middleware Architecture for Unmanned Aircraft Avionics

An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is a non-piloted airplane designed to operate in dangerous and repetitive situations. With the advent of UAV's civil applications, UAVs are emerging as a valid option in commercial scenarios. If it must be economically viable, the same platform should implement a variety of missions with little reconfiguration time and overhead. This paper presents a middleware-based architecture specially suited to operate as a flexible payload and mission controller in a UAV. The system is composed of low-cost computing devices connected by network.