On the Benefits of In-Flight System Identification for Autonomous Airdrop Systems

Ward, Michael B.; Costello, Mark; Slegers, Nathan

doi:10.2514/1.49030

Cited by 27 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The equations of motion for this six degree of freedom parafoil and payload representation have been derived previously and validated with flight test results [14][15][16].…”

Section: Simulation Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The two are related by the sideslip angle  , which is normally small for parafoil and payload aircraft. Two implementations of extended Kalman filter observers for wind and heading estimation of airdrop systems are given in [15], the first using only GPS measurements and the second using both GPS and a heading sensor. The navigation algorithm used throughout the current work makes use of the GPS only observer derived in [15].…”

Section: Figure 9: Decomposing Measured Velocity Vectormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two implementations of extended Kalman filter observers for wind and heading estimation of airdrop systems are given in [15], the first using only GPS measurements and the second using both GPS and a heading sensor. The navigation algorithm used throughout the current work makes use of the GPS only observer derived in [15]. The process noise variance for the wind estimates are set to 0.05 (m/s) 2 , the process noise variance for the heading rate is set to 0.005 (rad/s) 2 , and the measurement noise variance for the velocity measurements is set to 4 (m/s) 2 .…”

Section: Figure 9: Decomposing Measured Velocity Vectormentioning

confidence: 99%

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Autonomous Control of Parafoils Using Upper Surface Spoilers

Ward

Costello

2013

AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems (ADS) Conference

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The limited control authority and sensing capability of current airdrop systems make it extremely difficult for an autonomous system to recover from unanticipated changes in the wind profile near the ground. The addition of glide slope control to conventional lateral control of guided airdrop systems has shown the ability to provide dramatic improvements in landing accuracy. Additionally, upper surface aerodynamic spoilers using canopy bleed air have been shown to be an extremely effective means of both lateral and longitudinal control of parafoil and payload aircraft. The current work investigates the effect on landing accuracy of an autonomous parafoil and payload aircraft using upper surface spoilers for lateral and longitudinal control combined with a specialized control law to leverage the added authority this control mechanism provides. When used for lateral control alone, upper surface spoilers provide sufficient lateral control authority to achieve the same landing performance as typical airdrop systems utilizing the typical trailing edge brake control. Simulation results demonstrate that when using the spoilers for simultaneous lateral and longitudinal control, nearly a factor of 4 improvement is obtained in landing accuracy compared to conventional control strategies.

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“…The equations of motion for this six degree of freedom parafoil and payload representation have been derived previously and validated with flight test results [14][15][16].…”

Section: Simulation Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Figure 9: Decomposing Measured Velocity Vectormentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Figure 9: Decomposing Measured Velocity Vectormentioning

confidence: 99%

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Autonomous Control of Parafoils Using Upper Surface Spoilers

Ward

Costello

2013

AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems (ADS) Conference

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“…The transformation from the body frame (frame B in Figure 7) to the Figure 7) is defined by a single axis rotation in pitch by the canopy incidence angle. The equations of motion for this six degree of freedom parafoil and payload representation have been derived previously and validated in flight testing [11][12][13].…”

Section: Figure 5: Adjusting Approach Trajectory With Lidar Wind Profilementioning

confidence: 99%

Utilizing Ground-Based LIDAR for Autonomous Airdrop

Herrmann

Ward

Costello

et al. 2013

AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems (ADS) Conference

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Uncertainty in atmospheric winds represents one of the primary sources of landing error in airdrop systems. Significant landing errors can result if the winds near the ground differ from the wind estimates used to plan the system's approach path. This work examines the use of a ground-based LIDAR system to measure the wind profile in the vicinity of the payload delivery target. The ground based LIDAR system samples the wind field at discrete points in the airspace around the target and transmits this real-time wind profile data to approaching autonomous airdrop systems. The onboard autonomous guidance algorithm is modified to incorporate the wind field information from the LIDAR to plan the approach trajectory. The performance of the autonomous airdrop system operating in conjunction with a ground-based LIDAR is evaluated in simulation. A 3-dimensional, time varying wind model is used to generate realistic wind conditions that constantly vary over the course of the vehicle's trajectory and the parafoil and payload is simulated using a 6 degree of freedom non-linear model. Monte Carlo simulations are used to generate landing accuracy statistics to evaluate the improvement in landing accuracy when the information from the LIDAR unit is incorporated into an otherwise typical guided airdrop system. Simulation results demonstrate a factor of three improvement in landing accuracy in the presence of wind shear when incorporating the wind information from the LIDAR. Results also demonstrate that wind measurements covering the final approach phase of the flight are most critical and that it is possible to obtain large improvements in landing accuracy with even a small number of discrete measurements of the wind profile near the ground.

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“…To reduce the cost of guidance, navigation, and control systems, the low cost parachute system is analyzed where the system descends at high speeds and at the appropriate altitude, the main parachutes are deployed to minimize the wind effect and to reduce the system velocity. 6 In the study by Ward et al, 7 the in-flight system identification for autonomous airdrop system is used for system control and it shows that the method provides better estimates of system dynamics than a precomputed model. The work is further extended in the study by Ward and Costello 8 where the glide slope control strategy is proposed and the experiment shows that the landing with glide slope control is generally closer to the target in comparison with basic control algorithm.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of modeling and control during transport airdrop process

Chen

2016

International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

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This article presents the review of modeling and control during the airdrop process of transport aircraft. According to the airdrop height, technology can be classified into high and low altitude airdrop and in this article, the research is reviewed based on the two scenarios. While high altitude airdrop is mainly focusing on the precise landing control of cargo, the low altitude flight airdrop is on the control of transport aircraft dynamics to ensure flight safety. The history of high precision airdrop system is introduced first, and then the modeling and control problem of the ultra low altitude airdrop in transport aircraft is presented. Finally, the potential problems and future direction of low altitude airdrop are discussed.

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On the Benefits of In-Flight System Identification for Autonomous Airdrop Systems

Cited by 27 publications

References 22 publications

Autonomous Control of Parafoils Using Upper Surface Spoilers

Autonomous Control of Parafoils Using Upper Surface Spoilers

Utilizing Ground-Based LIDAR for Autonomous Airdrop

Review of modeling and control during transport airdrop process

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