Aerodynamic parameter estimation using genetic algorithms

Estimation of aircraft aerodynamic parameters from flight or wind-tunnel data has been an important modeling activity for aerodynamicists over several decades. In this work, we propose to apply the genetic algorithms (GAs) to estimate the longitudinal aerodynamic parameters of an airplane. We further show that the efficiency of classical GAs can be greatly improved by combining it with the simulated annealing (SA) technique. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the GA based algorithms in aerodynamic parameter estimation.