PARSIMONIOUS MODEL FOR AIR-DATA READOUT FROM “ON-SKIN” PRESSURE MEASUREMENTS IN SUBSONIC FLOWS

A model is introduced to compactly express the tie between pressure gradients on aircraft wings and the in-flow attitude angles and stream speed. The model is optimized for application in an instrumentation system inferring air-speed and angle of attack from a multi-point, redundant set of differential pressure measurements directly taken on the aircraft skin by strip-type sensors. It borrows from the analytical solutions for airfoils in subsonic flows, introducing a sufficient (yet parsimonious) parameterization enabling calibration on experimental data with good fitting for a wide range of airfoil types and sensor positioning.