Aeroelastic identification of a flying uavs by output only data with applications on vibration passive control

This paper shows the capabilities of a system identification approach, based on the experimental measurements of Output-Only, O-O, data, to monitor the aeroelastic characteristics of fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAVs, during their actual operative conditions. Traditional Input/Output identification techniques are not easily carried out for aeroelastic systems in operative flight conditions because of the intrinsic difficulty on measuring actual input loads. Therefore, only the response output level should be desirably used for the identification of aeroelastic systems. Then, how the use of the O-O approach allowed to passively reduce the operative aeroelastic vibrations, via piezoelectric-patch devices (PZTs,) mounted aboard the UAV is presented. In order to validate the proposed approach, a preliminary flight test campaign has been carried out. Data recorded aboard the Unmanned Aerial vehicle demonstrated the effectiveness of the PZT patches whose design has been based on the O-O system identification performed in the first part of the present work. © 2010 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.