Wind Field Velocity and Acceleration Estimation Using a Small UAV

A new method for estimating the wind field velocity and acceleration is proposed, which properly relates the kinematics of the aircraft using the aircraft frame, wind frame, and Earth-fixed frame. The proposed technique was compared to an existing direct method for computing the wind field velocity. Experimental Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flight data was used to validate the proposed approach. The experimental results demonstrated effective estimation of the attitude angles, and provided a smoothed estimate of the airspeed, angle of attack, and sideslip angle. The wind estimation results were validated with respect to measurements provided by a local weather station. It was shown that this new method is capable of providing a much more reasonable estimate of the local wind field than the existing direct method.

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