Efficient Power Design of Multi-core DSP TMS320C6678 Applied in Autonomous Aerial Refueling System

Autonomous Aerial Refueling(AAR) is a significant capability for both manned and unmanned aerial vehicles when extended flight duration or range is required. In the probe-drogue refueling system, the most challenging issue is to make accurate docking between the probe and disorderly drogue. One of the promising techniques to solve this problem is machine vision, through which drogue can be detected and then tracked automatically in a short time. To achieve this goal, an embedded platform with multi-core DSP is required to acquire and then process the image data quickly. However, the power management of 1-MS320C:6678 eight-core DSP suggested by the official guide is not so efficient and the operation ability of 8 parallel cores cannot be greatly performed due to insufficient output current. In this paper, a novel and high-performance power management system is proposed to deal with the problem above and the experimental results manifest the effectiveness for the new simplified system.