Smart fault-tolerant air-data sensor for aircraft flow angles measurement

This paper deals with the development of a smart multi-hole probe for aircraft air data sensing. The system aims at the calculation of static and total pressures, the angle-of-attack and the angle-of-sideslip starting from the elaboration of the pressure measurements on holes. The probe is characterized by fault-tolerant capabilities with respect to the loss of pressure data, and it is developed as an embedded system including MEMS sensors and a control electronics for multiple reconstructions of flow measurements. The basic idea for the reconstruction algorithm is that, for typical aircraft envelopes, flow angles are small (