Data acquisition system and methodology for high angle of attack parameter estimation

A digital data acquisition system has been flight tested in a Schweizer 2-32 sailplane and the algorithms, designed for high angle of attack parameter identification, are described in this paper. The system is portable and self-contained. Inertial sensors are mounted in a strapdown unit. Two Kiel-probes are used for airspeed measurement. "Off-the- shelf" microelectronics components are configured to operate as a multiprocessing system. The on-board computing power is used to monitor the sensor and support system and to improve flight test effectiveness. The Estimation-Before-Modeling technique has been selected for parameter identification. A time history of a flight test maneuver that will be used in the estimation of the aerodynamic parameters is also presented.