Aircraft System Identification: Theory And Practice

This book provides a comprehensive overview of both the theoretical underpinnings and the practical application of aircraft modeling based on experimental data - also known as aircraft system identification. Much of the material presented comes from the authors' own extensive research and teaching activities at the NASA Langley Research Center and is based on real world applications of system identification to aircraft. The book uses actual flight test and wind tunnel data for case studies and examples, and is a valuable resource for researchers and practicing engineers, as well as a textbook for postgraduate and senior-level courses.

All aspects of the system identification problem - including their interdependency - are covered: model postulation, experiment design, instrumentation, data compatibility analysis, model structure determination, state and parameter estimation, and model validation.

The methods described in the book have been successfully applied to projects such as flight envelope expansion for new or modified aircraft, verification and correction of wind-tunnel test results and analytic methods such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), control system design and refinement, stability analysis, simulation development, flying qualities assessment, and accident investigation, among others.

The book includes SIDPAC (System IDentification Programs for AirCraft), a software toolbox written in MATLAB®. Winner of a NASA Patent Award in 2001 and a NASA Space Act Award in 2006, SIDPAC is composed of many different tools that implement a wide variety of approaches explained fully in the book. These tools can be readily applied to solve system identification problems of interest to the reader.

You can find out more about SIDPAC, register for updates, and contact the authors through their website.

Dr. Vladislav Klein is Professor Emeritus of Engineering at the George Washington University, in Washington, DC. He received his Ph.D. from Cranfield University, Cranfield, UK, in 1974. He worked at the Aeronautical Research and Test Institute in Prague, The Czech Republic, from 1954 to 1970, then as a Senior Research Officer at Cranfield University in Cranfield, UK, from 1970 to 1975. He joined The George Washington University in 1975 as a faculty member at the Joint Institute for the Advancement of Flight Sciences (JIAFS) at NASA Langley Research Center. In addition to his teaching activities, he has been the principal investigator on research programs which included the improvement of existing methods and development of new methods for flight test data analysis. Some of these techniques are being used by various research establishments and aerospace companies in the United States and abroad. For his contributions to aircraft system identification research, he was awarded the NASA Medal for Exceptional Engineering Achievement in 1992.
Dr. Eugene A. Morelli has been a research engineer at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, since 1990. His research interests include flight dynamics, aircraft accident investigation, and all aspects of aircraft system identification. Dr. Morelli has written more than 50 technical papers and reports on these topics, and is the author of SIDPAC (System IDentification Programs for AirCraft). He has designed experiments and developed models for many different aircraft, including the X-29, X-31, F-18 High Alpha Research Vehicle (HARV), DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter, F-15 ACTIVE, Tu 144LL supersonic transport, North American Navion, and the X-43A (Hyper X), as well as many subscale models. Dr. Morelli is an associate fellow of the AIAA, and has given lectures, graduate courses, and short courses on flight dynamics and aircraft system identification.