Navigation Test bed for Remote Control Hovercraft

Abstract

Research in navigation and autonomous control of aerial objects has been a major challenge. The focus of this paper is to develop a hardware and software means to allow implementation of the mathematical model of control and guidance techniques. The scope of this work is to develop a test bed on which various experiments related to guidance and control of aerial vehicles can be performed. An open loop hardware based control system for hovercraft is developed that is able to execute many types of control algorithms. Radio Frequency transmitter that is interfaced with PC transmits control commands. Hovercraft has been selected because they pose a challenging test bed of its ability to drift due to inertia and air skirt dynamics.