Estimation of slender body elastic rates and accelerations using a combination of measured data

ifasd2024 Tracking Number 110

The paper presents a methodology to estimate the in-flight elastic and rigid-body dynamics of a slender flexible body using multiple data and an approximate aeroelastic model. It is intended to overcome the inherent shortcoming of flight control systems that typically rely on a rigid-body model whereas the measured response includes both the rigid-body dynamics and the elastic dynamic response. The study presents a Kalman state estimation approach based on an approximated aeroelastic model of the vehicle dynamics and a combination of measured data from different sensors, to estimate structural modal deformations, rates, and accelerations. The estimated states can then be used to reconstruct the elastic response at the IMU location, from which the rigid body dynamics can be computed. The paper presents the test case of a simple slender-body vehicle under random time-varying loading. Numerical results show that the proposed methodology accurately reconstructs the elastic dynamic elastic response. A parametric study presents the effect of using different sensor data of various noise levels.