Improving Correlation Function Method to Generate Three-Dimensional Atmospheric Turbulence

Abstract

Atmospheric turbulence is a common form of wind field that causes turbulence for aircraft. A high-intensity turbulence field may negatively affect flight safety. With the development of simulation modeling and software engineering, the influence of the atmospheric turbulence on an aircraft has been widely studied using simulation experiments. Because the method for generating one-dimensional atmospheric turbulence is now mature, researchers have been confronted with a growing need to generate the three-dimensional atmospheric turbulence field that is required in the new simulation experiments. In the current study, we generate a three-dimensional atmospheric turbulence field based on an improved correlation function method. The main innovation is that we use the double random switching algorithm to adapt the Gaussian white noise sequence that is closer to the ideal condition when creating the one-dimensional atmospheric turbulence field. The two-dimensional and the final three-dimensional atmospheric turbulence field can be generated based on the one-dimensional one by iteration. There are experimental results to confirm that the three-dimensional atmospheric turbulence generated by this method provides improved transverse and longitudinal correlations as well as reduced error when compared with the theoretical values.