Aircraft model-independent airspeed estimation without pitot tube measurements

Abstract

This paper presents a novel analytical redundancy approach for pitot tube failure accommodation using nonlinear Kalman filtering. This approach utilizes information from other sensors that are commonly implemented on aircraft in order to obtain an estimate of the airspeed which is independent from the pitot tube(s). This method was demonstrated to be independent of the aircraft model by providing experimental estimation results from two different unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) research platforms.