Aircraft Parameter Estimation Considering Process and Measurement Noise

Abstract

A practical formulation is proposed for aircraft parameter estimation using the filter-error method, which is a maximum likelihood estimator for dynamic systems with both process noise and measurement noise. The novelty of the proposed formulation is that by accurately estimating the measurement noise covariance matrix using a time series analysis method, the remaining unknowns (which include the unknown parameters in the state-space matrices and the process noise covariance matrix) become decorrelated and can be estimated simultaneously in a straightforward manner. The approach is demonstrated using simulation data and flight test data from a subscale airplane. Results indicate that the proposed algorithm can produce accurate modeling results when both measurement noise and process noise are present in the data.