In recent years, we have witnessed fast-growing unmanned aerial systems (UAS) based applications. To better facilitate these applications, many efforts have been made to enhance the capability of UAS from various aspects, including communications, control and networking, and so on. Nevertheless, most of these studies neglect the computation aspect. Recently, the UAS-enabled mobile edge computing (MEC) has attracted increasing research attention, which utilises UAS with onboard computing capability to provide on-demand computing services for mobile users. However, existing research on UAS-enabled MEC remains at the theory stage and how to design a UAS platform with advanced onboard computing capability has not been addressed. In this study, the authors aim to fill this research gap and design an open UAS-based airborne computing platform with advanced onboard computing capability. This platform was designed from three aspects: hardware, software, and applications. In particular, feasible computing hardware to perform UAS onboard computing is first considered and a prototype is then designed. To enhance the flexibility and programmability of the platform, two key virtualisation techniques are then investigated. Finally, they test the performance of their prototype by executing real UAS onboard computing tasks, the results of which verify the feasibility and potentials of the proposed airborne computing platform.

中文翻译：

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空中计算：开放的机载计算平台

近年来，我们目睹了基于快速增长的无人机系统（UAS）的应用程序。为了更好地促进这些应用，已经进行了许多努力以从各个方面增强UAS的能力，包括通信，控制和联网等。但是，这些研究大多数都忽略了计算方面。最近，启用了UAS的移动边缘计算（MEC）引起了越来越多的研究关注，该技术利用具有机载计算功能的UAS为移动用户提供按需计算服务。但是，有关基于UAS的MEC的现有研究仍处于理论阶段，如何设计具有先进机载计算能力的UAS平台尚未解决。在这个研究中，作者旨在填补这一研究空白，并设计一个具有先进的机载计算能力的基于开放式UAS的机载计算平台。该平台是从三个方面设计的：硬件，软件和应用程序。特别是，首先考虑了用于执行UAS机载计算的可行计算硬件，然后设计了原型。为了增强平台的灵活性和可编程性，然后研究了两种关键的虚拟化技术。最后，他们通过执行真正的UAS机载计算任务来测试其原型的性能，其结果验证了所提出的机载计算平台的可行性和潜力。首先考虑可行的用于执行UAS机载计算的计算硬件，然后设计原型。为了增强平台的灵活性和可编程性，然后研究了两种关键的虚拟化技术。最后，他们通过执行真正的UAS机载计算任务来测试其原型的性能，其结果验证了所提出的机载计算平台的可行性和潜力。首先考虑可行的用于执行UAS机载计算的计算硬件，然后设计原型。为了增强平台的灵活性和可编程性，然后研究了两种关键的虚拟化技术。最后，他们通过执行真正的UAS机载计算任务来测试其原型的性能，其结果验证了所提出的机载计算平台的可行性和潜力。