GNSS/INS based estimation of air data and wind vector using flight maneuvers

Abstract

We develop a GNSS/INS based algorithm to estimate air data (angle-of-attack and sideslip angle) and wind vector in real time. Our work uses observability analysis to demonstrate the feasibility of the model-free synthetic air data estimation. In addition, we show that certain canonical flight maneuvers, defined by the aircraft's orientation and airspeed, result in a high degree of observability for the air data parameters and the wind velocity vector estimates. Furthermore, a lower bound on the average time of wind variation can be derived from the analysis. Finally, the GNSS/INS-based algorithm is tested to estimate these parameters using simulation data. Results of simulation are consistent with the observability analysis.