Application of wavelet transform to aircraft safety

To improve aircraft safety, monitoring their flight characteristics in flight is one important concept. The system identification methodologies are applied to such purpose, and their capability is studied. Experiments using a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), whose flight characteristics are far more difficult to be identified than conventional aircraft mainly because of their light weight, indicate that conventional methods are insufficient; However, a newly proposed new method using wavelet transform can identify its characteristics accurately and its potential to be used for the monitoring is shown. An experiment to separate wingtip of the small UAV and to identify the varying flight characteristics is currently under preparation for further evaluations of this new method, and its details are also described.