Preliminary Definition of Metrological Guidelines for Synthetic Sensor Verification

Abstract

The MIDAS project, funded in the Clean Sky 2 frame, will provide the aerospace community with an innovative modular digital air data system. The MIDAS’s main innovation is based on estimation of aerodynamic angles (angle of attack and sideslip) using synthetic sensors instead of classical vanes (or sensors), whereas pressure and temperature are measured with Pitot and temperature probes respectively. Both probes and the electronic unit constitute a single line replaceable unit for the aircraft. There are several approaches to design synthetic sensors (e.g. Kalman filter and neural network) but at the moment there is a lack of metrological standard procedures useful to accomplish a certification process. In fact, the lack of shared procedures to calibrate and validate synthetic sensors, produces a diversity of approaches all over the world that can hardly be compared with each other. Nevertheless, under the MIDAS project, a solid test plan shall be prepared to validate and verify the synthetic sensors from the perspective of certification. Therefore, the MIDAS experience can be used to put the basis of preliminary metrological guidelines. The present work will give an overview of the suitable metrological procedures, in terms of manoeuvres, that shall be further developed and consolidated in the next future.