An approach to minimize aircraft motion bias in multi-hole probe wind measurements made by small unmanned aerial systems

Loiy Al-Ghussain, Sean C.C. Bailey

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

A multi-hole probe mounted on an aircraft provides the air velocity vector relative to the aircraft, requiring knowledge of the aircraft spatial orientation (e.g., Euler angles), translational velocity and angular velocity to translate this information to an Earth-based reference frame and determine the wind vector. As the relative velocity of the aircraft is typically an order of magnitude higher than the wind velocity, the extracted wind velocity is very sensitive to multiple sources of error including misalignment of the probe and aircraft coordinate system axes, sensor error and misalignment in time of the probe and aircraft orientation measurements in addition to aerodynamic distortion of the velocity field by the aircraft. Here, we present an approach which can be applied after a flight to identify and correct biases which may be introduced into the final wind measurement. The approach was validated using a ground reference, different aircraft and the same aircraft at different times. The results indicate a significant reduction in wind velocity variance at frequencies which correspond to aircraft motion.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)173-184
Number of pages12
JournalAtmospheric Measurement Techniques
Volume14
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 11 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Financial support. This research has been supported by the Na-

Funding Information:
This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (grant no. CBET-1351411) and the National Science Foundation Office of Experimental Programs to Stimulate Competitive Research (award no. 1539070).

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation through grant no. CBET-1351411 and award no. 1539070: Collaboration Leading Operational UAS Development for Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics (CLOUDMAP). The authors would like to thank Caleb Canter, Jess Estridge, Jonathan Hamilton, Sean MacPhee, Ryan Nolin, Isaac Rowe, Christopher Saunders, Virginia Smith, Christina Vezzi and Harrison Wight, who maintained and flew the aircraft used in this study, as well as calibrating and manufacturing the probes.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Copernicus GmbH. All rights reserved.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Atmospheric Science

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