Study on Optimal Planning of Flight Experiments Using Remotely-Piloted Research Vehicles

众所周知，当影响气动动力和力矩的参数之间存在较强的相关性时，根据飞行数据估计的气动特性会下降。分析了产生这一问题的物理原因，并通过仿真验证了不使用原控制面进行机动的有效性。提出了一种利用“飞针平衡”装置估算飞行器气动特性的新方法，该装置是将安装在连接飞行器尾部的吊臂末端的附加控制面与吊臂根部的测力元件相结合，并通过远程驾驶研究飞行器（RPRV）的纵向气动特性仿真和飞行实验证明了该装置的有效性。作者开发了飞行实验系统，并扩展了机载计算机系统，以便利用飞针平衡控制飞行器的特定机动和飞行。计算机系统是由现成的非常小和轻的计算机板在标准上称为PC/104。为了在地面检测系统故障和软件缺陷，开发了硬件在环实时飞行仿真，并基于面向对象的编程思想构建了实时软件系统。为了替代笨重的姿态传感器，提出了一种利用加速度计和具有漂移的低成本角速率传感器来估计姿态控制的俯仰角和倾斜角的方法。通过滤除两者组合的重要频带来估计角度。

It is known that the aerodynamic characteristics estimated from flight data degrade when the parameters, which contribute to the aerodynamic forces and moments, have strong correlations with each other. Physical reasons of this problem were made clear and letting the vehicle maneuver without using original control surfaces was shown to be effective by simulation. A new method to estimate the aerodynamic characteristics using a device named a "flying sting balance", which is a combination of additional control surfaces installed at the end of a boom connected to the tail of a vehicle and load cells at the root of the boom, was proposed, and the usefulness of this device was shown by simulation and flight experiments using an Remotely-Piloted Research Vehicle (RPRV) for longitudinal aerodynamic characteristics.The flight experiment system had been developed by the authors, and the on-board computer system was expanded in order to control the vehicle for the specific maneuvers and the flights using the flying sting balance. The computer system is composed of off-the-shelf very small and light computer boards on the standard called PC/104. In order to check system malfunction and software bugs on ground, hardware-in-the-loop real time flight simulation was developed as well as the real time software system constructed on the concept of object-oriented programming.An alternative to the heavy and bulky attitude sensors, a method to estimate the pitch and bank angles for attitude control was developed using accelerometers and low-cost angular rate sensors having drifts. The angles are estimated by filtering out the significant frequency bands of the two combining them.