Publications de Gabriel François Laupré

Synthetic Wind Estimation for Small Fixed-Wing Drones

Jan Skaloud, Gabriel François Laupré, Pasquale Longobardi

Wind estimation is crucial for studying the atmospheric boundary layer. Traditional methods such as weather balloons offer limited in situ capabilities; besides an Air Data System (ADS) combined with inertial measurements and satellite positioning is requi ...

MDPI AG2024

VDMNav: Software Architecture for Aerodynamically Constrained Navigation on Small Fixed-Wing Drones

Jan Skaloud, Gabriel François Laupré

Navigation of drones is predominantly based on sensor fusion algorithms. Most of these algorithms make use of some form of Bayesian filtering with a majority employing an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), wherein inertial measurements are fused with a Global N ...

2024

Reliable strategies for implementing model-based navigation on fixed-wing drones

Jan Skaloud, Gabriel François Laupré, Lucas Pirlet

A relatively novel approach of autonomous navigation employing platform dynamics as the primary process model raises new implementational challenges. These are related to: (i) potential numerical instabilities during longer flights; (ii) the quality of mod ...

2023

Identifying aerodynamics of small fixed-wing drones using inertial measurements for model-based navigation

Jan Skaloud, Gabriel François Laupré

The success of drone missions is incumbent on an accurate determination of the drone pose and velocity, which are collectively estimated by fusing iner- tial measurement unit and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) mea- surements. However, during a G ...

2023

Optimization and Real-Time Aspects of Aircraft Model-Based Navigation

Gabriel François Laupré

The Vehicle Dynamic Model (VDM) based navigation of fixed-wing drones determines the airborne trajectory in conjunction with Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors. Without Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals, this method estimates navigati ...

EPFL2022

Aerodynamic characterization of a delta-wing UAV based on real flight data

Jan Skaloud, Gabriel François Laupré, Pasquale Longobardi

Vehicle Dynamic Model based navigation represents a novel approach to autonomous navigation for small UAVs. It significantly improves the navigation solution under GNSS outage condition without adding additional sensors to the platform. This paper proposes ...

IEEE2021

Calibration of Fixed-Wing UAV Aerodynamic Coefficients with Photogrammetry for VDM-based Navigation

Jan Skaloud, Gabriel François Laupré

Autonomous navigation is a crucial aspect for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle operation when encountering disturbance or denial of GNSS signal reception. Vehicle dynamic model-based navigation improves the performance of methods based exclusively on int ...

2021

On the Self-Calibration of Aerodynamic Coefficients in Vehicle Dynamic Model-Based Navigation

Jan Skaloud, Gabriel François Laupré

The performance of vehicle dynamic model (VDM)-based navigation largely depends on the accurate determination of aerodynamic coefficients that are unknown a priori. Among different techniques, such as model simulations or experimental analysis in a wind tu ...

2020

Sensitivity to Time Delays in VDM-Based Navigation

Jan Skaloud, Gabriel François Laupré, Mehran Khaghani

A recently proposed navigation methodology for aerial platforms based on the vehicle dynamic model (VDM) has shown promising results in terms of navigation autonomy. Its practical realization requires that control inputs are related to the same absolute ti ...

2019