Open Loop System Identification of a Small Multirotor Vehicle with an Active Feedback Control System

2018, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc, AIAA. All rights reserved. Past research involving system identification of a multirotor vehicle generally produces only a closed-loop model because the identification of the open-loop unstable dynamics of a multirotor is considered as impractical. In this paper, time domain equation-error and frequency domain output-error techniques were applied to estimate an open-loop model of a multirotor vehicle. A series of flight tests were performed with two different excitation input types: manual or piloted inputs, and designed perturbation inputs added to the output of the active control system. A separate model was generated using the flight data from each of the input types. The postulated model structures were developed using first principles and previous work, and established using statistical metrics applied to the flight data. The parameter estimates from the equation error analysis were used to initialize the frequency domain output error analysis. The models generated by the output error analysis were then validated using flight test data not used in the estimation process.

Open Loop System Identification of a Small Multirotor Vehicle with an Active Feedback Control System Conference Paper