Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the longitudinal aerodynamic characterization of an unmanned cropped delta configuration from real flight data. In order to perform this task an unmanned configuration with cropped delta planform and rectangular cross-section has been designed, fabricated, instrumented and flight tested at flight laboratory in Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK), India. Design/methodology/approach – As a part of flight test program a real flight database, through various maneuvers, have been generated for the designed unmanned configuration. A dedicated flight data acquisition system, capable of onboard logging and telemetry to ground station, has been used to record the flight data during these flight test experiments. In order to identify the systematic errors in the measurements, the generated flight data has been processed through data compatibility check. Findings – It is observed from the flight path reconstruction that the obtained biases are negligible and the scale factors are almost close to unity. The linear aerodynamic model along with maximum likelihood and least-square methods have been used to perform the parameter estimation from the obtained compatible flight data. The lower values of Cramer-Rao bounds obtained for various parameters has shown significant confidence in the estimated parameters using maximum likelihood method. In order to validate the aerodynamic model used and to increase the confidence in the estimated parameters a proof-of-match exercise has been carried out. Originality/value – The entire work presented is original and all the experiments have been carried out in Flight laboratory of IITK.

The paper presents the aerodynamic characterization of a low-speed unmanned aerial vehicle, with cropped delta planform and rectangular cross section, at and around high angles-of-attack using flight test methods. Since the linear models used for identification from flight data at low and moderate angles of attack become unsuitable for accurate parameter estimation at high angles of attack, a non-linear aerodynamic model has to be considered. Therefore, the Kirchhoff's flow separation model was used to incorporate the non-linearity in the aerodynamic model in terms of flow separation point and stall characteristic parameters. The Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Neural Gauss-Newton (NGN) methods were used to perform the parameter estimation on one set of low angle-of-attack and one set of near-stall flight data. It is evident from the estimates that the NGN method, which does not involve solving equations of motion, performs on a par with the classical ML method. This may be attributed to the reason that NGN method uses a neural network which has been trained by performing point to point mapping of the measured flight data. This feature of NGN method enhances its application over a wider envelope of high angles of attack flight data.

In this paper, longitudinal and lateral-directional aerodynamic characterisation of the Cropped Delta Reflex Wing (CDRW) configuration–based unmanned aerial vehicle is carried out by means of full-scale static wind-tunnel tests followed by full-scale flight testing. A predecided set of longitudinal and lateral/directional manoeuvres is performed to acquire the respective flight data, using a dedicated onboard flight data acquisition system. The compatibility of the acquired dynamics is quantified, in terms of scale factors and biases of the measured variables, using Kinematic consistency check. Maximum likelihood (ML), least squares and newly emerging neural Gauss–Newton (NGN) methods were implemented for a wing-alone delta configuration, mainly to capture the dynamic derivatives for both longitudinal and lateral directional cases. Estimated damping and weak dynamic derivatives, which are in general challenging to capture for a wing alone configuration, are consistent using ML and NGN methods. Validation of the estimated parameters with aerodynamic model is performed by proof-of-match exercise and are presented therein.

The current research paper is an endeavour to estimate the parameters from near stall flight data of manned and unmanned research flight vehicles using conventional and neural based methods. For an aircraft undergoing stall, the aerodynamic model at these high angles of attack becomes non linear due to the influence of unsteady, transient and flow separation phenomena. In order to address these issues the Kirchhoff's flow separation theory was used to incorporate the nonlinearity in the aerodynamic model in terms of flow separation point and stall characteristic parameters. The classical Maximum Likelihood (MLE) method and Neural Gauss-Newton (NGN) method have been employed to estimate the nonlinear parameters of two manned and one unmanned research aircrafts. The estimated static stall parameter and the break point, for the flight vehicles under consideration, were observed to be consistent from both the methods. Moreover the efficacy of the methods is also evident from the consistent estimates of post stall hysteresis time constant. It can also be inferred that the considered quasi steady model is able to adequately capture the drag and pitching moment coefficients in the post stall regime. The confidence in these estimates have been significantly enhanced with the observed lower values of Cramer-Rao bounds. Further the estimated nonlinear parameters were validated by performing a proof of match exercise for the considered flight vehicles. Interestingly the NGN method, which doesn't involve solving equations of motion, was able to perform on a par with the MLE method.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the application of the neural-based estimation method, Neural-Gauss-Newton (NGN), using the real flight data of a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Design/methodology/approach The UAVs in general are lighter in weight and their flight is usually influenced by the atmospheric winds because of their relatively lower cruise speeds. During the presence of the atmospheric winds, the aerodynamic forces and moments get modified significantly and the accurate mathematical modelling of the same is highly challenging. This modelling inaccuracy during parameter estimation is routinely treated as the process noise. Furthermore, because of the limited dimensions of the small UAVs, the measurements are usually influenced by the disturbances caused by other subsystems. To handle these measurement and process noises, the estimation methods based on neural networks have been found reliable in the manned aircrafts. Findings Six sets of compatible longitudinal flight data of the designed UAV have been chosen to estimate the parameters using the NGN method. The consistency in the estimates is verified from the obtained mean and the standard deviation and the same has been validated by the proof-of-match exercise. It is evident from the results that the NGN method was able to perform on a par with the conventional maximum likelihood method. Originality/value This is a partial outcome of the research carried out in estimating parameters from the UAVs.