Development of a Low-Cost Sub-Scale Aircraft for Flight Research: The FASER Project

TLDR

The authors built an inexpensive unmanned sub‑scale aircraft to enable frequent flight‑test experiments for advanced dynamic modeling and control design research. The FASER aircraft was equipped with high‑quality instrumentation, a PC104 flight computer running xPC‑Target, onboard data storage with real‑time telemetry, and was validated through wind‑tunnel tests and a six‑degree‑of‑freedom nonlinear simulation. Flight tests confirmed operational maturity, validated instrumentation, and demonstrated that flight data are accurate and consistent once systematic instrumentation errors are corrected.

Abstract

An inexpensive unmanned sub-scale aircraft was developed to conduct frequent flight test experiments for research and demonstration of advanced dynamic modeling and control design concepts. This paper describes the aircraft, flight systems, flight operations, and data compatibility including details of some practical problems encountered and the solutions found. The aircraft, named Free-flying Aircraft for Sub-scale Experimental Research, or FASER, was outfitted with high-quality instrumentation to measure aircraft inputs and states, as well as vehicle health parameters. Flight data are stored onboard, but can also be telemetered to a ground station in real time for analysis. Commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and software were used as often as possible. The flight computer is based on the PC104 platform, and runs xPC-Target software. Extensive wind tunnel testing was conducted with the same aircraft used for flight testing, and a six degree-of-freedom simulation with nonlinear aerodynamics was developed to support flight tests. Flight tests to date have been conducted to mature the flight operations, validate the instrumentation, and check the flight data for kinematic consistency. Data compatibility analysis showed that the flight data are accurate and consistent after corrections are made for estimated systematic instrumentation errors.