Best Paper Award for Research on Intelligent Wind Estimation

Barron Associates received a best paper award for work on intelligent wind estimation recently presented in the Unmanned VTOL during the Vertical Flight Society’s 79^th Forum.  The paper entitled, Intelligent Wind Estimation for CBRN Agent Tracking and Localization, outlines methods to provide accurate wind estimates in urban and complex environments that can be used by CBRN source localization algorithms. Accurate wind estimates, along with other atmospheric measurements, increase the accuracy and efficiency of the source localization approaches. The work focused on wind estimation for small UAS multi-rotor vehicles and estimates three-dimensional winds based on the response of the vehicle to control and exogenous, e.g., wind, inputs. The work presents an advance from current approaches to wind estimation that assume the vehicle operates at a hover or low-speed, steady flight. Barron will continue its research on wind estimation for different applications under a new Phase II STTR program sponsored by the Air Force.