A Simple Method for Estimation of Angle of Attack

摘要

During the recent years, researchers are attempting to fly Mini Aerial Vehicles (MAV) in highly unconventional missions and constrained space. As a result, the Angle of Attack (AOA) becomes a very critical quantity for operating the aircraft. But the angle of attack is not directly measured by adding separate sensor units in MAVs due to weight constraint. The present note establishes a simple method for estimation of the angle of attack. This method involves converting the dynamical system equation into a nonlinear algebraic equation by separating the pitch rate. This nonlinear algebraic equation is then solved for the angle of attack capturing gross steady state. Later, pitch rate is added to the above algebraic solution to capture the dynamics. This note presents the error statistics of the estimated angle of attack and the estimate exhibits an accuracy of around 4o to 6o. The simulations were carried out with and without considering sensor drift of 1o per second in the gyro measurements.