| Summary: | The aim of this research is to examine aspects of system identification for unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs). The process for aircraft in general can be broken down into a number of steps,
including manoeuvre design, instrumentation requirements, parameter estimation, model structure
determination and data compatibility analysis. Each of these steps is reviewed and potential
issues that could be encountered when analysing UAV data are identified. Problems which
may be of concern include lack of space within the airframe to mount sensors and a greater
susceptibility to the effects of turbulence in comparison to manned aircraft. These issues are
investigated using measurements from two experimental sources. Firstly, Cranfield University’s
dynamic wind tunnel facility is utilised, in which scale models are flown in semi-free
flight. The control surfaces are actuated so that inputs, similar to those used when flight testing
full-sized aircraft, can be applied and the resultant response of the model is recorded. Measurements
from a 1/12 scale model of the BAe Hawk and a 1/3 scale model of the FLAVIIR project
demonstrator UAV are used. An added benefit of the facility to this work is that the wind tunnel
models are comparable in size to the miniature class of UAVs. Therefore, practical issues,
similar to those faced for these aircraft, are encountered with the wind tunnel experiments. The
second source of experimental data is UAV flight test data supplied by BAE Systems.
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