Estimated aerodynamic coefficients of aircraft with improved least squares method based on experimental data

This article aims to investigate the stability and estimate the aerodynamic coefficients of an aircraft based on experimental flight data. The least squares method was used to estimate these coefficients by using data from an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and global positioning system (GPS). This research, for the first time, has estimated these coefficients on a high-wing aircraft and during various flight maneuvers, including takeoff, landing and variant turns. It has been conducted utilizing time and frequency response data based on actual flight. In this article, the match between the recorded flight path of the aircraft and the flight path plotted by MATLAB software output was evaluated, and the output of the flight path model confirmed this match. Moreover, to improve the estimation of aerodynamic coefficients, the least squares method was modified using past inputs to estimate a value. The method explained in this article was evaluated in 5 experiments using actual flight data from the aircraft. Finally, the maximum estimation error generated by the modified method is 6.7%, which was related to the pitching moment coefficient.