The topic discussed in this paper addresses the current research being conducted at the Automation and Robotics Research Institute in the areas of UAV helicopter instrumentation targeted towards aerobatic flight and heterogenous multi-vehicle cooperation. A modular electronic system was designed which includes sensors communicating over a CAN bus and an on-board computer that runs a special real-time Linux kernel. The same system is reusable on other types of vehicles and on the ground stations, facilitating the development of multi-vehicle control algorithms.