Unsteady Aerodynamics in Model-Based Wind Estimation from Fixed-Wing Aircraft Motion

What is it about?

Wind disturbances can be estimated from the disturbance forces they cause to an aircraft's motion. Modeling these disturbance forces accurately can improve the accuracy of the wind estimates. This paper shows how to include the history-dependent effect of unsteady aerodynamics in the motion model. The paper then compares the resulting wind estimates, computed using experimental flight data, with similar estimates based on a model that does not include these history-dependent effects. For the aircraft and environment considered here, the two approaches performed similarly in comparison with independent wind measurements.

Featured Image