The document discusses the use of SCADE by a Brazilian company called XMobots for developing the ground control software for their unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It describes how SCADE was used to create a more robust, reliable, and standardized 2nd generation ground control system (GCS) software that meets aeronautical certification standards, compared to their original hand-coded 1st generation GCS software. The 2nd generation GCS developed with SCADE Display and modeling delivers improved performance despite using lower-powered hardware, and provides benefits like reduced development time, lower costs, and easier maintenance.

1. The Use of SCADE for UAV Ground
Stations
SCADE User Group Conference 2013
Fábio Henrique de Assis
Certification Director
fabio.assis@xmobots.com
Paris - France, 2013/10/17

2. Sumary
 The Company
 RPAS Applications
 SCADE Usage
 Demo Video
www.xmobots.com

3. The Company
 Business
“Development, manufacturing, training, maintenance and operation of Unmanned Systems”
 Location: São Carlos – SP - Brazil
 Internal Team (18)
– ADM, R&D and
Production
 External Team
– R&D at important Brazilian
universities: IME, UFRN,
3
UFAL, ITA and UNB

4. The Company
History
www.xmobots.com.br

5. The Company
R&D Projects
Products and R&D Projects: RPAS from 500g to 250kg
www.xmobots.com
5

6. The Company
Products Overview
 RPAS
•
•
•
MTOW: 6.5 kg
Autonomy: 45 min
Range: 10 km
•
•
•
MTOW: 15 kg
Autonomy: 5 h
Range: 30 km
•
•
•
MTOW: 32 kg
Autonomy: 8 h
Range: 60 km
 Services
– Aerial Images
– Engineering
– Maintenance and Training
www.xmobots.com
6

7. Sumary
 The Company
 RPAS Applications
 SCADE Usage
 Demo Video
www.xmobots.com

8. RPAS Applications
Military

Civilian


Main use around the world

Military certification standards

Civilian certification standards

Forbidden in several countries
www.xmobots.com.br
www.xmobots.com
8

9. RPAS Civilian Applications
Environmental Market
www.xmobots.com.br

10. RPAS Civilian Applications
Building Market
www.xmobots.com.br

11. RPAS Civilian Applications
Security
 Coastal and Borders Patrol
www.xmobots.com.br

12. RPAS Civilian Applications
Agribusiness
 Precision Agriculture
12

13. RPAS Civilian Applications
Agribusiness
 Counting of Cattle
35 units
www.xmobots.com.br

14. RPAS Civilian Applications
Energy Market
 Power Lines, Oil & Gas Pipelines Inspection, Roads
and Railroad monitoring
www.xmobots.com.br

15. RPAS Civilian Applications
Security – EO/IR Stabilized Video
 Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR),
Search and Rescue
www.xmobots.com.br
15

16. RPAS Civilian Applications
Challenges
 Civilian applications requires certification
– Lack of standards for UAS
– Keep the Equivalent Level of Safety (ELOS) of manned
aircrafts
 Actual possibilities in Brazil for operation:
– R&D Applications
• Universities, R&D Institutes
Full commercial applications
expected to 3rd Q. 2014
– Segregated airspace with NOTAM
– Remote areas with low population density
Environmental and Agribusiness Market
www.xmobots.com
16

17. RPAS Civilian Applications
Main Challenge
 Certification Process
compliant with the
existent for manned
aircrafts:
– SAE ARP 4754 / 4761
– RTCA DO 178 / 160
APOENA 1000C
Operation of UAVs over Urban Areas
 Combined with military
UAS Standards
– NATO STANAG 4586
and in Controlled Airspace

18. RPAS Civilian Applications
Main Challenge
 Why did we choose SCADE?
– To comply with aeronautical standards (DO-178/ARP 4754)
• Verification and Tests in
the model
• Qualified code
generation
• Qualified documentation
generation
• Reduce the human
resources in the project
• Increase in quality and
reliability of the system

19. Sumary
 The Company
 RPAS Applications
 SCADE Usage
 Demo Video
www.xmobots.com

20. RPAS
Definition
Safety Critical
Avionics
PAYLOAD
REMOTELY PILOTED AIRCRAFT (RPA)
Safety Critical
Real Time GUI
GROUND DATA TERMINAL (GDT)
20
GROUND CONTROL STATION (GCS)

21. GCS
Overview
 1st Stage of Usage
Apoena Series
Nauru Series
Echar Series
Safety Critical Real Time GUI
www.xmobots.com

22. GCS
1st Generation
 GCS-S2A
www.xmobots.com

23. GCS
1st Generation
 Year of release: 2009
 Technical characteristics:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Used in Apoena Series
100% Hand Code
Java and Photoshop
Not compliant with
aeronautical standarts
Development time: 2 years
Low realibility
Low robustness
Requires a powerful CPU
www.xmobots.com

24. GCS
2nd Generation

25. GCS
2nd Generation
 GCS-S19A (Keyboard)
 GCS-S10A (Touchscreen)
www.xmobots.com

26. GCS
2nd Generation
 First version release: 2013 January.
 Technical characteristics:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Experimental software (Nauru and Echar Series)
MDD, C and SCADE Display
Much less manual coding
Compliant with aeronautical standarts (ARP 4102-7/AC
23.1311-1B)
Development time: 6 months
More reliable
More robust
Cheap embedded ARM-based CPU
www.xmobots.com

27. GCS
Development Methodology
 Development with:
– SCADE Display (Graphics);
– A little of SCADE Suite (Behaviors);
– Hand Code (low level software).
www.xmobots.com.br

28. GCS
2nd Generation
www.xmobots.com

29. GCS
Comparisons
 First Generation (Java)
– Telemetry sensors created with manual drawing in
Photoshop and loaded with Java Swing
– Complex hand-coded tranformations in images
– New sensor limits? New images had to be created
– Slow software rendering (High CPU usage)
 Second Generation (SCADE Display)
–
–
–
–
Telemetry sensors created with SCADE Display
Automatic transformations in the sensors (models)
New sensor limits? Change configuration parameters
Fast OpenGL ES rendering (GPU usage)

30. GCS
Comparisons
 First Generation
– Hard and error prone development (2 years)
 Second Generation
– Robust and easy to develop (about 6 months!)
www.xmobots.com

31. GCS
Performance
 First Generation (Java)
– Hard to meet performance requirements
• Solution? To use a fast CPU (3GHz Core2Duo)
 Second Generation (SCADE)
– Easy to meet performance requirements with software
tweaking
• Use of OpenGL ES 1.1;
• Follow SCADE Display design checker design rules (like avoid
stencils);
• Lots of profiling of the generated code;
www.xmobots.com

32. GCS
Performance
 Results:
– Usage of about 30% of the CPU
• ARM™ Cortex™ A8 @ 1GHz
– 1st generation uses a 3GHz Core2Duo Desktop CPU
 So, we have “space” to use other software:
– Digital H.264 HD video
– Moving Map
– Payload tracking algorithms
www.xmobots.com

33. GCS
Benefits of using SCADE
 Main benefits:
– Management POV:
• Saved money
– with development time
– with hardware
– But, mainly, creating a software with much higher quality
– Engineering POV:
•
•
•
•
More robust and reliable software
Better development process
Focus on model and not in the code
Ease of change and maintenance tasks
www.xmobots.com

34. Future Developments
 3rd Generation GCS Software:
– GUI development with SCADE Display
– Compliant with NATO STANAG 4586
– One software for all UAVs of XMobots
 UAV Control Software:
– SysML with SCADE System
– Implementations with SCADE Suite
– Reqs. Traceability, Tests and Reports
with SCADE Lifecycle
www.xmobots.com

35. Thank You!
www.xmobots.com