Project Title:

Isentropic Flight Guidance System for UAVs

Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation
10601 Observation Rd.
Manassas, VA 22111

93-1-08     10   3633

Isentropic Flight Guidance System for UAVs

Abstract:

When interpreting chemical changes from measurements made on
moving platforms it is important to remove signatures due to the
motion of the air. This has proved difficult on existing manned
aircraft such as the ER-2, necessitating post-processing of the
data prior to interpretation. Digital flight control systems
offer the possibility to receive signals from onboard scientific
payload instruments and use them to fly a trajectory of specific
scientific interest such as constant potential temperature,
maximum cloud particle density, or maximum chemical species
gradient. Unmanned aircraft are particularly attractive platforms
for conducting these experiments since they are highly
maneuverable, already set up to operate off computer-driven
systems, and involve no risk to human life onboard. The
innovation proposed herein is the first fully automatic flight
control system that integrates data from scientific payloads with
aircraft state variables to provide flight guidance commands
based on specific scientific needs. During Phase I several
control algorithms will be investigated and simulated. During
Phase II one or more algorithms would be fully developed and
demonstrated in flight aboard an unmanned aircraft.

Earth Science Advanced Aircraft program and related missions; EPA
pollution monitoring; mapping plumes of volcanic, chemical, or
biological origins.

unmanned aircraft, digital flight control systems, isentropic
flight