In-flight Wind Field Identification and Prediction of Parafoil Systems

Abstract

The wind field is an essential factor that affects accurate homing and flare landing of parafoil systems. In order to obtain the ambient wind field during the descent of a parafoil system, a combination method of in-flight wind field identification and prediction is proposed. First, a wind identification method only using global position system information is derived based on the flight dynamics of parafoil systems. Then a wind field prediction model is constructed using the atmospheric dynamics, and the low-altitude wind field is predicted based on the identified wind field of high-altitude. Finally, simulations of wind field identification and prediction are conducted. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can identify the wind fields precisely and also predict the wind fields reasonably. This method can potentially be applied in practical parafoil systems to provide wind field information for homing tasks.

A Novel Trajectory Planning Method for Parafoil Airdrop System Based on Geometric Segmentation Strategy

“…Step 2: Generate a new levy flight solution from Equation (10). , represents theth solution in the -th generation, ( )~ / / , ~ (0, σ ), ~ (0, 1), the parameter can be calculated by Equation (11),…”

“…The parafoil airdrop system is a soft-wing system, and its flight is easily disturbed by the surrounding environment, such as terrain and wind [10]. It is a nonlinear system and has many restrictions on its control.…”