Roland Schmehl
15 November 2024
Use the developed theory to describe specific idealized flight maneuvers, such as
For that purpose also the steering behavior of the kite is taken into account. The navigation strategies and resulting maneuvers are building blocks to construct flight paths of which the basic aspects are introduced together with flight control.
Before we do this, we first recapitulate where we stand in terms of theory development.
Up to this point, we have considered the kite as a point mass with a velocity.
Following the convention used for aircraft and spacecraft, the kite-fixed reference frame is aligned with the principal axes of the kite.
Parafoil vehicles in maneuvering flight differ significantly from other, conventional aircraft types in that control input produces turn rate, rather than roll rate, and also in that turning is associated with side-slip (Brown 1993).
Composite photo of 6 m2 kite
during a tow test, photographed
from the towing vehicle (Elfert and Schmehl 2023).
Analysis from Elfert paper, leading to
˙ψ=gkv2avkus+g⋅ey,kvk,where
˙ψ is the turn rate,
gk is the steering gain,
us is the nondimensional steering
input.
Roullier (2020)
The planning of the flight path for pumping cycle operation is detailed in Section 15.3 “Flight Path Planner” of this book chapter.
