Multi-sensor Aircraft State Estimation

Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics University of Minnesota adhika [at] aem [dot] umn [dot] edu

Adhika Lie

January 6, 2014

Vitae
M.S in 2012 Ph.D in ... 2014

B.Eng in 2009 Born!

Vitae
ASTER Labs (2011, 2013) M.S in 2012 Ph.D in ... 2014

CSR (2013) B.Eng in 2009 Born!

Vitae
ASTER Labs (2011, 2013) M.S in 2012 Ph.D in ... 2014

CSR (2013) B.Eng in 2009 Born!

Vitae
ASTER Labs (2011, 2013) M.S in 2012 Ph.D in ... 2014

CSR (2013) B.Eng in 2009 Born!

Research Portfolio
Sensor Fusion
Synth Air

GPS AHRS

INS/GNSS

Environment: MATLAB, Python, C

3

Other Interests

NavPy:

https://github.com/navpy
!

Flight Data Simulator using JSBSim:

http://svn_gebre.umnaem.webfactional.com/trunk/flight_data_simulator/
!

xNav, Navigation suite for UAS (business)

Airdata System
!

Airdata systems, at a minimum, provide an estimate of 3 parameters indispensable for aircraft control
!

Airspeed ( V ) Angle of attack ( ) Sideslip angle ( )

V =
N VW B

Traditionally, these parameters have been measured using pitot-static-vane system Goal of this work is to explore the issues associated with using non-pitot or vane types of sensor for estimation of these parameters

u2 + v 2 + w 2 w

u v = tan1 V
5

= tan

State-of-the-art
A330 F-16A

F-16A C172

BE9T

Motivation for an Alternative

!

An alternate airdata system will be beneficial or necessary in the following applications:

!

Increased reliability: No common mode failure Fault detection and isolation: Consistency check UAVs: Size, weight, power Other special applications, e.g. water landing

ATI Resolution II

Candidate Systems and Tradeoffs

Sensor Pros Cons

e.g. NESLIE, DANIELA from Thales !

Laser

Far field measurement Flush mounted

Size and weight Computationally Intensive Expensive Relies on existence of particle in the flow

Sonic Anemometer
e.g. Universite de Pariss Airborne ! Ultrasonic Anemometer Thermometer (AUSAT)

Insensitive at low speed

Difficult to mount Change in flying behavior

Estimation of , , and V
!

IMU and GNSS receivers are ubiquitous on aerial platforms Can these sensors be used to estimate the triad of angle of attack, sideslip angle, and airspeed?
!

Assuming no wind, yes. Because Groundspeed = Airspeed. In practice in can be challenging!

= GPS + IMU VD,GPS 1 GPS = tan |VGPS |

Prior Work & Problem Statement

Authors
J. E. Zeis, Jr (1988) A. Murch (2008) M. Heller (2003) R. Colgren (2001) K. Wise (2005)

Solutions
Dynamic model of F-15 and Nav grade IMU to estimate alpha, beta

Comments
Depends on high-end IMU, require pitot to supply airspeed

Lift coefficient and load factor to estimate alpha Complementary filtering with aircraft dynamics Subtract dynamic acceleration from total acceleration (IMU) Airdata Filter

Only estimate alpha, airspeed from pitot Wind is assumed to be small Heurestic gust compensation method (sensitive!) Use high-end IMU, pitot is used in dynamic model

Can a system akin to Wises be constructed using low-cost IMUs? Also, can airspeed be estimated from IMU/GNSS fusion?
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Frames & Notation Convention

!

In formulating this problem, we will deal with three coordinate frames:

!

The aircraft body frame (B frame) The earth frame (E frame) and the navigation frame (N frame) The wind frame (W frame)

Velocity of the B-frame relative to the E-frame written in terms of unit vectors of the N-frame:
N VEB

Transformations (direction cosine) matrix which maps vectors from the B-frame to the N-frame:
N CB

Thus:

N N VEB = CN V B EW

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Problem Formulation: Kinematics

!

The objective is to estimate airspeed from the following relation:

Groundspeed N VEB | {z }

= =

Windspeed

N VEW + | {z }

Airspeed(NED)

Windspeed

Given an estimate of u, v, and w; airspeed, angle of attack, and sideslip angle can be calculated using:
V =
N VW B

B B N N VW VEW ) = [u v w ] T B = CN ( VEB |{z} | {z } IMU INS/GNSS

N B VEW + CN V B WB } | {z } | {z

N VW | {z B }

Airspeed

u2 + v 2 + w 2 w

u v = tan1 V

= tan

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Nuisance Parameter: Wind Speed

!

For simplicity of notation, we write the wind speed as follows (in terms of its N/S/ E/W/D components):

N W = VEW = [ WN WE WD ] T
!

The components of the groundspeed are:

N VEB
!

= [ VN V E V D ]

For a simplified 2-D case, as long as heading changes, wind can be estimated!
V N ( t1 ) V E ( t1 ) V N ( t2 ) V E ( t2 ) . . . {z
y

= } |

cos( (t1 )) sin( (t1 )) cos( (t2 )) sin( (t2 )) . . .

sin( (t1 )) cos( (t1 )) sin( (t2 )) cos( (t2 )) . . . {z

H

1 0 1 0 . . .

0 1 0 1 . . .

u v WN WE | {z x }

x = ( H T H ) 1 H T y

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Extension to Varying Airspeed and Wind

V
Model

A model of the aircraft motion can be used to allow dealing with time varying airspeed and wind A kinematic model of the motion can be obtained using IMU A kinetic (dynamic) model can be obtained from aircrafts Equation of Motion While each of these approaches can be used independently, a kinematic model alone requires very accurate sensors
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Sensor biases lead to poor stochastic observability of aircrafts motion Atmospheric turbulences is unobservable from sensor errors

We use both kinematic and kinetic model of the aircraft in estimating airdata quantities.
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How to fuse Model & Sensor Information

!

Not all mechanization works well. Here are two examples that do not work well:
Conventional EKF
(Section II.B.1)

State-constrained EKF
(Section II.B.2)

Aircraft dynamics and attitude

!

Lack of correlation between these two Bad aircraft dynamics affects accuracy of all states

Wind: act like a bias, account for both attitude and airspeed errors Need to constrain the bias estimation (e.g. Bevly (2007)

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Synthetic Airdata Filter

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Airdata Filter States

!

Cascaded Filter - potentially sub-optimal Filter 1: Supplies groundspeed and attitude states to Filter 2
Input to Filter 2

x|Filter1 = [ L

VN

VE

VD

bax

bay

baz

bax

bay

baz ]

Filter 2: Estimates airspeed, angle of attack, and sideslip angle + correlated error in measurements from Filter 1
x|Filter2 = [ u v w p q r WN WE WD b b b ]
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Wind + Correlated Error

Correlated Error

Simulation Trajectory
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Cessna 172 simulated using JSBSim, known flight dynamics Maneuvers at different airspeed (cruise and approach speed) and G-loading (1-g, standard rate turn, and steep turns at 2-g)

Wind, 5.14 m/s

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Air Data Error

Red lines are 3-sigma bound

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Flight Test Campaign

!

Ultra Stick 120, developed from NASA Langleys FASER (+ wind tunnel data) Langleys air data system + UMNs Goldy FCS
Ibis

Goldy Flight Control System

Pitot Tube

Wingtip Vanes Angle of attack and Sideslip angle measurement

UMN UAV: http://www.uav.aem.umn.edu/

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Using Wind Tunnel Data

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Obtaining Aircraft Model

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Airframe modifications, wear and tear, etc. would have altered the aerodynamic properties Goals:
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Perform system identification (SID) to get an updated aerodynamic model Compare the performance of the synthetic airdata algorithm using these two models
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Sensitivity: How much do I lose if I use outdated aero model?

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Stochastic System ID
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An aircraft is a continuous-time dynamical system

x (t) = f [x(t), u(t), t],

x ( t0 ) = x 0

y (t) = g [x(t), u(t), t]

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Extension to stochastic dynamical system (with process noise) Noisy measurements are made at discrete time interval Noise is assumed to be additive white Gaussian noise.

z ( t i ) = y ( ti ) + i T E { i } = 0 E i i = R
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SysID using MLE

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Use Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) to perform System ID Minimize the following cost functions:

J ( ) =

(ti ) is the computed response using: where y x ( t) = f x(t), u(t), t)], x ( t0 ) = x 0 [ y (ti ) = g x(ti ), u(ti ), ti ] [
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N X 1

i=1

[ z ( ti ) y (ti )] R

[ z ( ti ) y (ti )]

SysID Result (preliminary)

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Longitudinal Model
Elevator Doublet Elevator Doublet

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Summary
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Designed a synthetic (non pitot-static-vane) airdata system

!

Provides an estimate of airspeed, angle of attack, and sideslip Fuses low cost IMU and GNSS with aircraft dynamic model

Developed a method to determine a stochastic model of the aircraft suitable for the synthetic airdata system Future work:
!

Sensitivity to inertial sensor quality Integrity and certification Stability in closed loop system
26

Other Interests

NavPy:

https://github.com/navpy
!

Flight Data Simulator using JSBSim:

http://svn_gebre.umnaem.webfactional.com/trunk/flight_data_simulator/
!

xNav, Navigation suite for UAS (business)