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Formation flying is known to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of a follower aircraft flying close to the wake vortices of a leader. In this study, two wake sensing strategies designed to locate these vortices are exposed. The first one is based on dedicated measurements of the follower wing circulation distribution and on the control surfaces deflections. The second one relies on measurements from its flight dynamics (position, velocity) and control surfaces. Both techniques implement an Ensemble Kalman Filter for the propagation in time of the non-linear surrogate model, which involves Prandtl lifting lines for the aerodynamics, and a simplified equation of motion. The resulting estimators are tested under steady and unsteady flight conditions, using reference data obtained from the numerical simulation of the associated wake flows using CFD. As a result, an accurate estimation of thewake parameters is produced by both methods, even in configurations where a symmetry was known to hamper the filter efficiency. Noisy configurations are also considered through the addition of ambient turbulence in the simulations. In that case, the second method proves more sensitive to external perturbations.
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Caprace, D.-G., Winckelmans, G., Chatelain, P., & Eldredge, J. (2019). Wake Vortex Detection and Tracking for Aircraft Formation Flight. AIAA Aviation 2019 Forum. Published. AIAA Aviation 2019 Forum, Dallas, Texas. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2019-3329