Optimal Input Design for Autonomous Aircraft

TL;DR

This paper develops an optimal input design method for autonomous aircraft to improve aerodynamic parameter estimation through safe, tailored maneuvers, validated by real flight experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optimal control approach for designing safe, effective flight maneuvers to enhance system identification in autonomous aircraft.

Findings

Optimized maneuvers outperform conventional ones in parameter estimation accuracy.

The method ensures safety constraints are satisfied during experiments.

Validated through real flight tests with improved data quality.

Abstract

Accurate mathematical models of aerodynamic properties play an important role in the aerospace field. In some cases, system parameters of an aircraft can be estimated reliably only via flight tests. In order to obtain meaningful experimental data, the aircraft dynamics need to be excited via suitable maneuvers. In this paper, optimal maneuvers are obtained for an autonomous aircraft by solving a time domain model-based optimum experimental design problem that aims to obtain more accurate parameter estimates while enforcing safety constraints.The optimized inputs are compared with respect to conventional maneuvers widely used in the aerospace field and tested within real experiments.