Flight Performance Evaluation Research Articles

Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation of Pilot Cadets’ Flight Performance Based on G1 Method

In this paper, to better evaluate the flight performance of pilot cadets, a flight performance evaluation index system was constructed based on the task of the traffic pattern, the flight training manual, and interviews with instructors. The fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model established by the G1 method was used to evaluate the flight performance of pilot cadets. The flight data of 30 flight cadets were collected to verify the applicability of the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model. The results showed that the index system established in this paper can meet the requirements of flight performance evaluation. In addition, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation results were consistent with the evaluation results of experts. Therefore, the system is effective and feasible for the evaluation of pilot cadets’ flight performance through the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model established by the index system and G1 method.

Computational evaluation of flight performance of flapping-wing nano air vehicles using hierarchical coupling of nonlinear dynamic and fluid-structure interaction analyses

This study endeavours to introduce an inventive hierarchical coupling methodology for evaluating the flight capabilities of polymer micromachined flapping-wing nano air vehicles (FWNAVs) using advanced computational tools. Furthermore, our objective is to provide a practical demonstration of FWNAVs in both tethered and airborne scenarios. These dual objectives represent the distinctive and pioneering aspects of this research. Such FWNAVs, which are insect-inspired robots, have a 2.5-dimensional structure. An FWNAV comprises a micro piezoelectric drive system and a pair of micro thin flexible wings. The drive system includes a micro transmission and a piezoelectric bimorph actuator. The flight performance of the designed FWNAV is evaluated using a hierarchical coupling approach, where the whole system is decomposed into a micro wing and a micro piezoelectric drive system. The coupling between these parts is modelled as one-way coupling and that between the micro wings and the surrounding air is modelled as strong coupling. In the one-way coupling analysis, nonlinear structural dynamic analysis is conducted for the micro piezoelectric drive system, where the dynamic response is transmitted to the micro wings via the Dirichlet boundary condition. In the strong coupling analysis, strongly coupled fluid-structure interaction analysis is conducted for the micro wings and the surrounding air to consider their strong coupling. The optimisation of flight performance is conducted using fluid-structure interaction analysis to achieve sufficient lift force to support the weight of an FWNAV. The design of a tethered and flyable FWNAV with a size of 10 mm or smaller is demonstrated. This FWNAV can be easily fabricated using polymer micromachining.

CO2 and non-CO2 balanced Environmental Scores Module for flight performance evaluation and optimisation

The SESAR2020 exploratory research (ER4) programme CREATE (Grant 890898) developed a climate and weather aware Concept of Operations (ConOps) which encompasses a multi-aircraft 4D trajectory optimisation framework, which utilises a CO2 and non-CO2 balanced Environmental Scores Module (ESM) for the en-route flight phase. The ESM provides a computational method to evaluate the “greenness” of aircraft trajectories. Some components related to the internal ESM scoring are based on expert judgement, which is in line with the technology readiness level (TRL) 1 of the solution. Fast-time simulations were performed to demonstrate the proof-of-concept of the ESM in a multi-aircraft tactical optimisation scenario in the North-Atlantic region. The results show that, because of the simplicity of the metric, the ESM could be well used for trajectory optimisation and tactical replanning, and most likely as well as flight and ATC sector environmental performance evaluations.

CO2 and non-CO2 balanced Environmental Scores Module for flight performance evaluation and optimisation

CO2 and non-CO2 balanced Environmental Scores Module for flight performance evaluation and optimisation

Inferring Flight Performance Under Different Maneuvers With Pilot’s Multi-Physiological Parameters

The relationship between flight performance and multi-physiological parameters under different flight operating patterns is unknown. This work proposes a Stacked Gaussian Process Network (SGPN) to reveal it. SGPN is a multi-layer network model formed by recursion from a regular Gaussian process and random disturbance. This work constructs an auxiliary variable strategy with the induced points to improve its learning efficiency, thus leading to a sparse SGPN model. In it, a Gaussian process acts as an activation function of each node, but the entire model is no longer a Gaussian process and thus very challenging to solve it. This work presents its solution via variational approximate inference. Experimental results of pilot flight performance evaluation show that the proposed model has stronger learning and generalization ability than its seven competitive peers. It is able to approximate non-linear coupling relationship between multi-physiological parameters and flight height differences.

Surrogate Neural Network for Rapid Flight Performance Evaluation of Hybrid Rocket Engines

This paper investigates the use of neural networks as surrogate models for fast and accurate performance prediction of hybrid rocket engines (HREs). To this aim, a deep feedforward neural network is trained to estimate the thrust and mass flow rate laws of a liquid oxygen/paraffin-wax HRE (as well as other motor characteristics, including the burning time as well as dry and propellant masses), starting from a limited number of motor design parameters, which define the fuel grain, the nozzle geometry, and the initial oxidizer mass flow rate. A medium-fidelity HRE ballistic model, accounting for nozzle throat erosion and two alternative oxidizer feed systems (a pump-fed and a pressure-fed system), is used to generate the sample data the network is trained on. A comprehensive analysis is carried out to assess the neural network accuracy and its generalization capability using several network topologies and varying the size of the training set. Finally, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, the trained network is used as a surrogate HRE model within a multidisciplinary optimization process, which is aimed at determining the optimal HRE design and ascent trajectory for a Vega-derived three-stage launch vehicle, where a HRE replaces the last two stages of the original four-stage rocket.

Simulation-based Long-range Flight Performance Evaluation of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

As Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) which can fly only by controlling the rotor thrust are expected to be used in various fields in the future, so the demand for long-range flight is expected to increase. For instance, it is an effective application that UAVs is used to inspect offshore wind power generations but wind, flight paths or navigations affect flight efficiency and flyable range when operating in a real environment. It is useful for optimizing flight performance to use simulations in various cases before flying there to obtain parameters. Therefore, this study constructs an aircraft model and flight environment that are close to an actual environment and perform simulations in some simple cases. In the future, the parameters will be applied to multi-rotor drones or vertical take-off and landing aircrafts (VTOL) and inspect offshore wind power generations using them. The report explain research into the development of a simulation using MATLAB/Simulink that considering wind effects and the flight evaluation of long-range flight.

Waterproof airflow sensor for seabird bio-logging using a highly sensitive differential pressure sensor and nano-hole array

This paper presents an airflow sensor for seabird bio-logging. Although bio-logging methods have attracted attention in the evaluation of seabird flight performance, the airflow velocity has not been directly measured. Here, an airflow sensor is added to the bio-logging system, and a direct airflow velocity measurement is applied, thus enabling more accurate evaluation of the flight performance. To attach the sensor to the bio-logging system, the sensor must be waterproof because seabirds dive into the sea to prey on fish. In addition, the sensor must also be compact and have high sensitivity. Here, we propose a Pitot tube-type airflow sensor that satisfies these requirements. The proposed sensor is composed of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) piezoresistive cantilevers as sensing elements with high sensitivity and anodic alumina membranes with a nano-hole array as the waterproof elements with airflow penetration. The developed sensor responded sufficiently to airflow velocities from 2 m/s to 20 m/s. In addition, the sensor maintained its sensitivity after plunging into the water and returning to the air. Therefore, the proposed sensor can be utilized for practical seabird bio-logging.

항공기에 탑재된 DGPS/INS 복합항법 장치의 비행 시험 성능 평가를 위한 기준궤적의 Lever Arm 보정

항공 산업의 발전에 따라 정밀하고 신뢰성 높은 항법 정확도를 제공하기 위하여 DGPS/INS 복합항법 장치에 대한 많은 연구가 수행되고 있다. 이러한 항법 시스템의 항법 정확도는 항공기의 안전성과 신뢰성에 직접적인 영향을 끼치기 때문에 항법 시스템의 비행시험 검증은 매우 중요하다. 특히 DGPS/INS 복합항법 장치와 같은 높은 수준의 위치 정확도를 가지는 항법시스템을 검증하기 위해서는 보다 정확한 비행 항법 성능 평가기법이 필요하다. 항법 성능 검증은 DGPS/INS보다 정밀한 항법 정확도를 가지는 기준 궤적과의 비교 분석을 통해 이루어지며 기준 수신기는 수 cm수준의 CDGPS 후처리 기법이 가능한 GPS 수신기를 사용해야 한다. 일반적으로 DGPS/INS 복합항법 장치의 출력 점은 항공기의 무게중심점으로 GPS 안테나의 위치를 출력하는 GPS 수신기와 다르기 때문에 출력데이터의 가공없이 성능 평가를 진행할 경우 추정 오차에 안테나 위치와 항공기의 무게중심점간 거리 오차가 포함된다. 따라서 보다 정확한 항법 성능 평가를 위하여 기준 궤적 생성을 위한 GPS 수신기의 Lever Arm 보정이 필요하다. 본 논문에서는 DGPS/INS 복합항법장치의 비행항법 성능 검증을 위하여 기준궤적의 Lever Arm 보정을 포함한 비행시험 성능평가 절차 및 비행 시험 결과를 제시한다. It has been studied for DGPS/INS(Differential Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System) to offer the more precise and reliable navigation data with the aviation industry development. The flight performance evaluation of navigation system is very significant because the reliability of navigation data directly affect the safety of aircraft. Especially, the high-level navigation system, as DGPS/INS, need more precise flight performance evaluation method. The performance analysis is performed by comparing between the DGPS/INS navigation data and reference trajectory which is more precise than DGPS/INS. The GPS receiver, which is capable of post-processed CDGPS(Carrier-phase DGPS) method, can be used as reference system. Generally, the DGPS/INS is estimated the CG(Center of Gravity) point of aircraft while the reference system is output the position of GPS antenna which is mounted on the outside of aircraft. For this reason, estimated error between DGPS/INS and reference system will include the error due to lever arm. In order to more precise performance evaluation, it is needed to compensate the lever arm. This paper presents procedure and result of flight test which includes lever arm compensation in order to verify reliability and performance of DGPS/INS more precisely.

Comparison Between DCM and Quaternion Transformation in Lever Arm Compensation of Reference System for Flight Performance Evaluation of DGPS/INS

The flight performance evaluation of navigation system is very significant because the reliability of navigation data directly affect the safety of aircraft. Especially, the high-level navigation system such as DGPS/INS, need more precise flight performance evaluation method. The performance analysis is evaluated by comparing between the navigation system in aircraft and reference trajectory which is more precise than navigation system in aircraft. In order to verify DGPS/INS performance of m-level, the GPS receiver, which is capable post-processed Carrier-phase Differential GPS(CDGPS) method of cm-level, have to be used as reference system. The DGPS/INS is estimated the Center of Gravity (CG) point of aircraft to offer precise performance while the reference system is output the position of GPS antenna which is mounted on the outside of aircraft. Therefore, in order to more precise performance evaluation, it needs to compensate the lever arm and coordinates transformation. This paper use quaternion and Direct Cosine Matrix(DCM) methods as coordinate transformation matrix in lever arm compensation of CDGPS reference trajectory. And it compares NED errors of DCM and quaternion transformation in lever arm of reference trajectory via DGPS/INS result.

Use of time-lapse photography in flight performance evaluation.

Use of time-lapse photography in flight performance evaluation.