Nonlinear aeroelastic modeling of aircraft using support vector machine method

Purpose This paper aims to propose a nonlinear model for aeroelastic aircraft that can predict the flight parameters throughout the investigated flight envelopes. Design/methodology/approach A system identification method based on the support vector machine (SVM) is developed and applied to the nonlinear dynamics of an aeroelastic aircraft. In the proposed non-parametric gray-box method, force and moment coefficients are estimated based on the state variables, flight conditions and control commands. Then, flight parameters are estimated using aircraft equations of motion. Nonlinear system identification is performed using the SVM network by minimizing errors between the calculated and estimated force and moment coefficients. To that end, a least squares algorithm is used as the training rule to optimize the generalization bound given for the regression. Findings The results confirm that the SVM is successful at the aircraft system identification. The precision of the SVM model is preserved when the models are excited by input commands different from the training ones. Also, the generalization of the SVM model is acceptable at non-trained flight conditions within the trained flight conditions. Considering the precision and generalization of the model, the results indicate that the SVM is more successful than the well-known methods such as artificial neural networks. Practical implications In this paper, both the simulated and real flight data of the F/A-18 aircraft are used to provide aeroelastic models for its lateral-directional dynamics. Originality/value This paper proposes a non-parametric system identification method for aeroelastic aircraft based on the SVM method for the first time. Up to the author’s best knowledge, the SVM is not used for the aircraft system identification or the aircraft parameter estimation until now.