JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE, CONTROL, AND DYNAMICS

Vol. , No. ,

Nonlinear and Linear Unstable Aircraft Parameter Estimations

Using Neural Partial Differentiation

M. Sinha, R. A. Kuttieri, and S. Chatterjee

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721 302, India
DOI: 10.2514/1.57029
To overcome the numerical problems faced by conventional methods for the parameter estimation of linear and
nonlinear unstable aircraft dynamics, an approach based on neural partial differentiation is proposed. An equation
for the relative standard deviation, which is equivalent to the CramerRao bound in methods such as output error
approach, is derived for the statistical analysis of the estimates obtained using the neural partial differentiation
approach and verified through numerical simulation. The neural architecture to be used for the parameter estimation
is also discussed. It is shown that the neural partial differentiation approach is better than the least-squares approach
for noisy data. The longitudinal axis stability and control derivatives are obtained for simulated data, with and
without noise for an unstable aircraft, using the neural partial differentiation approach and compared with the least-
squares and stabilized output error methods. Moreover, the longitudinal axis stability and control derivatives
estimated from actual flight data of the unstable X-31A aircraft are compared with the least-squares and stabilized
output error approaches, proving the efficacy and superiority of the proposed neural approach.

Nomenclature W~ = weight matrix connecting second hidden layer

CL = nondimensional lift force coefficient and output layer
CAC = pitching moment coefficient about the aerody- w_ = normal acceleration, ms2
m
namic center w~ = weight vector containing all weights of neural
CCG = pitching moment coefficient about the center of network
m
gravity X~ = output vector of first hidden layer
Y~ = output vector of second hidden layer
CAC AC
m , Cmq , = nondimensional pitching moment derivatives
Z~ = output vector of neural network
CAC
me , CAC
mc Zi;max = maximum value of ith output
c
= mean aerodynamic chord, m Zi;min = minimum value of ith output
di = normalized observed or measured value of ith Zi;normmax = upper limit of normalization for ith output
output Zi;normmin = lower limit of normalization for ith output
E
 = error function Zw , Zq , Ze = dimensional first-order derivatives for normal
E 0
 = gradient of error function acceleration
f
 = activation function Z w 2 , Z q2 = dimensional second-order derivatives for normal
g
 = activation function acceleration
hGG = nondimensional distance from aerodynamic = angle of attack, rad
center to center of gravity  = trim state angle of attack, rad
Nz = normal acceleration, ms2 i = activation potential of ith neuron in first hidden
q = pitch rate, rads layer
q_ = pitch acceleration, rads2 c = canard deflection, rad
q
= dynamic pressure, Nm2 e = elevator deflection, rad
q_ w , q_ , = dimensional first-order derivatives for pitch c = trim state canard deflection, rad
q_ q , q_ e acceleration e = trim state elevator deflection, rad
q_ w2 , q_ q2 = dimensional second-order derivatives for pitch i = activation potential of ith neuron in second
acceleration hidden layer
q = trim state pitch rate, rads ~ = augmented input vector to neural network
S = reference area, m2
U~ = weight matrix connecting input layer and first
hidden layer
I. Introduction 3
U0 = initial forward speed, ms
V~ = weight matrix connecting first hidden layer and
second hidden layer E STIMATION of stability and control derivatives plays a vital
role in the lifecycle of an aerospace vehicle development
program for the following reasons: 1) validating/updating wind-
w = normal velocity, ms
tunnel and theoretical estimates; 2) explaining the aerodynamic
stability and control behavior of the vehicle, and handling quality
Received 20 November 2011; revision received 27 November 2012; analysis; 3) design and validation of flight control laws; 4) flight
accepted for publication 27 November 2012; published online XX envelope expansion; and 5) design of a high-fidelity flight simulator
epubMonth XXXX. Copyright 2012 by the American Institute of [1]. Therefore, in spite of the availability of the parameters of an
Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved. Copies of this paper aircraft from wind-tunnel measurements, estimation using flight data
may be made for personal or internal use, on condition that the copier pay the becomes inevitable. Over the last four decades, various estimation
$10.00 per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood techniques were developed and successfully applied to the aircraft
Drive, Danvers, MA 01923; include the code 1533-3884/YY and $10.00 in
correspondence with the CCC. parameter-estimation problem. These classical estimation methods
1 *Assistant Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering; ms.aissq@ can be broadly categorized as the 1) equation error, 2) output error,
gmail.com. and 3) filter error methods [2,3]; the latter two require a priori
knowledge of the dynamic model and the initial estimate of the
Research Scholar, Department of Aerospace Engineering.

2 Graduate Student, Department of Aerospace Engineering. parameters.
1
2 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE
The output error and the filter error methods are quite efficient to
meet the requirements of a stable aircraft in flight regimes with linear
or nonlinear aerodynamic characteristics. However, application of
the output error method poses a divergence problem in the numerical
integration of the unstable aircraft dynamics. Many variants [4] of
the output error approach are applied to counteract the divergence
problem that arises due to poor initial estimates, roundoff, and
approximation arising due to discretization, which is propagated by
the unstable dynamics of the system. However, it is a fact that the
divergence problem at times cannot be denied while using these
variants, in addition to there being increased complexity of the
modified algorithms. The filter error methods that are based on the
principle of the predictorcorrector approach have inherent stability
in numerical propagation of the states, as they use measurements to
update the states after the prediction step. Therefore, the filter error
methods can be applied successfully for the parameter estimation of
the unstable aircraft. However, their implementation is complicated
and requires setting up of the state equations for various parameters
to be estimated in addition to the state equations for the system
dynamics. Aircraft parameter estimation in the frequency domain is
limited to linear systems only, restricting its wide utility [5].
To overcome the difficulties posed by the classical approaches,
neural networks were used for the aircraft parameter-estimation
problem. A neural network can learn from the inputoutput pairs and
can provide reliable function approximation [6,7]. This makes it fit
for the aircraft parameter-estimation problem, where the forces and
moments are directly represented in terms of a linear or nonlinear
function of the motion and control variables. Hess [8] reported the
first application of the neural network for finding the aerodynamic
coefficients. He used a feedforward neural network to map the input
variables (motion and control variables) to the output variables
(aerodynamic forces and moments). A similar work was reported by
Youseff [9]. Feteih and Breckendridge [10] applied a neural network
to find the aerodynamic coefficients of an unstable aircraft reported
by Hess [8]. The use of a recurrent neural network, which has self-
feedback to approximate the dynamics of a system, was reported for
the parameter estimation [11], but the accuracy achieved was
not good.
A more sound approach to obtain the aircraft parameters from the
flight data, such as the stability and control derivatives, using neural
network-based delta and zero methods [1214], showed promise.
Both these methods apply finite differencing to obtain the stability
and control derivatives in the post-training phase. As an extension to
this work, the modified delta method [15,16] was developed to yield
the parameter estimates with a small standard deviation. However, all
these methods require additional data processing in the post-training
phase in order to extract the stability and control derivatives by finite
difference approximation. A combination of the neural network and
the GaussNewton method [17] can also be applied to estimate the
stability and control derivatives. In this method, the neural network is
used to propagate the state of the aircraft, which is followed by
application of the GaussNewton method to estimate the stability and
control derivatives by minimizing a suitable cost function. However,
all these methods lack a precise theoretical basis and do not give any
insight into the nature of the results. A radial basis function neural
network can also be used for the aircraft/helicopter parameter-
estimation [18] problem. This differs from the earlier neural network-
based methods, in that the sigmoid function was replaced by the
radial basis function. The methodology is exactly same as for the
other neural methods mentioned earlier, and therefore requires data
processing in the post-training phase. However, this method requires
a large number of hidden neurons and is slower than the sigmoid
nonlinearity-based neural network [19]. To avoid the need of post-
training data processing and to improve the accuracy of estimation, a
neural partial differentiation method [20] was reported for the
estimation of the lateral/directional stability and control derivatives
from the actual flight data of an aerodynamically stable aircraft. The
results obtained using the neural partial differentiation method
showed superior performance compared to those obtained using the
zero, delta, and least-squares methods on actual flight data. However,
the work presented [20] did not show theoretical developments on the
accuracy and nature of the estimates obtained using the neural partial 4
differentiation approach. Moreover, the effect of the measurement
noise in the input and output variables was not theoretically
developed, and it was not investigated through simulation.
Unlike the other neural methods reported in literature, the neural
partial differentiation approach can give theoretical insight into the 5
statistical information, such as the relative standard deviation
(RSTD) that is equivalent to the CramerRao bound in the output
error method. Moreover, the neural partial differentiation approach is
superior in terms of computational efficiency and uncertainty in the
estimates compared to the other neural methods. In this work, the
nature of the relative standard deviation of the estimates, obtained
from the neural partial differentiation approach, is theoretically
developed and verified through numerical studies on the actual and
simulated flight data of an unstable aircraft. A theoretical analysis
of the nonlinear parameter estimation using the neural partial
differentiation approach is also presented. This is supported by the
simulation of a nonlinear unstable aircraft model and application of
the neural partial differentiation for the nonlinear parameter
estimation. The results of estimation for a linear unstable aircraft,
from a simulated noisy dataset, are presented to show the effect of
noise on the accuracy of the estimates and to support the theoretical
developments elaborated on in the next section. Finally, the
parameter estimation of the unstable X-31A aircraft (open loop) from
actual longitudinal flight data is presented. The results of estimation
on the actual and simulated data obtained using the neural partial
differentiation approach are compared with those obtained using the
least-squares approach and the stabilized output error method [4]. It is
shown that the performance of the neural partial differentiation
approach is superior to the least-squares approach for noisy data. The
issue of neural architecture to be used in the estimation is also
discussed.
II. Neural Network Modeling
Mathematical formulation of a multilayer neural network, for
estimating the first- and second-order stability and control derivatives
of an unstable aircraft, using the neural partial differentiation method
is discussed in this section. Mathematical formulation of the standard
deviation and relative standard deviation is presented for better
understanding of the nature of the estimates. The effect of noise on
the estimation of stability and control derivatives is theoretically
investigated in this section and later simulated in the results section
(Sec. III). The architecture of the neural network to be used for
various problems is also discussed.
A. Mathematical Formulation of Neural Network
The schematic of a three-layer feedforward neural network,
henceforth to be referred as a neural network, is shown in Fig. 1. The
theoretical analysis presented in this paper pertains to this model. It
consists of two hidden layers and one output layer of neurons,
wherein the output-layer neurons contain a summation function only,
i.e., these are free from the activation function. The input and the
output vectors of the neural network are represented as ~ Rn1 and
inputs outputs
z
.. 1
..x .. .. 1
.
h
z
u 2
.. g hg
.. .. ..
. . v
ih
.y i
.
.. ... l ... z
... m
n wji j
1
. k
z
. k
first hidden layer second hidden layer output layer
Fig. 1 Schematic of a feedforward neural network.
 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE 3

Z~ Rk , respectively. Let the first and second hidden-layer such cases, the weights may not converge to the proper values
augmented output vectors (containing bias) be represented as X~ sometimes. However, if the output neurons have the sigmoidal
Rm1 and Y~ Rl1 , respectively. The output of the neural network nonlinearity, then the neural output will be 1.0 when the activation
can be written as Z~  W~ T Y,
~ where W~ is the augmented weight matrix potential reaches infinity, which is unattainable. Therefore, the data
connecting the second hidden layer to the output layer and is defined points mapped to 1.0 or 1.0 will be detrimental to the learning
as process. The output vector of the neural network can be expressed as
2 3
bw1 bwk
6 w11 Z~  W~ T f
~ U~ T ~ 
~ V~ T g
(7)
6 w1k 7
7
W~  6 .. .. .. 7 (1)
4 . . . 5 The cost function, to optimize the weights of the neural network
wl1 wlk during the learning process, is taken as the mean square error (MSE)
function as given in Eq. (8):
The matrix W~ is augmented, to absorb the weights bwi related to the
6 bias term, for notational convenience and compactness. The vector Y~
can be expressed as Y~  f
~ V~ T x ~ , where f
:
~  f
~ ~ stands for the 1 XP X k
MSE  E
w
~ 
d Zi 2j (8)
activation function vector and is defined as 2P j1 i1 i

f~  1f
1 f
2  f
i  f
k T

Here, w~ is a vector consisting of all the weights of the neural network,
 Y 0 Y 1 : : : Y i : : : Y l T Rl1 (2) E is the error function, P is the total data points (number of
7 observations), di is the ith normalized measured value of the output,
Here, i denotes activation potential of the ith neuron. The tangent Zi is the normalized computed value of the output, and the index j
hyperbolic function [Eq. (3)] is f, which serves as a nonlinear stands for the jth data point. The normalization is done using Eq (6).
activation function, as it provides better results [21]: Since the neural network training is done in batch mode, the MSE is
computed at the end of every step of iteration using updated values of
1 ei the weights. The neural network training is carried out using the 9
f
i   (3)
1  ei backpropagation method and the scaled conjugate gradient algorithm
[22] to minimize the MSE. The scaled conjugate gradient algorithm is
The weight matrix V~ can be written as based on the LevenbergMarquardt approach. It computes the
2 3 gradient of the MSE function with respect to the weights.
bv1 bvl
6 v11 v1l 7 B. Neural Partial Differentiation Method
6 7
V~  6 .. .. .. 7 (4)
4 . . . 5 In this subsection, the first-order neural partial differentiation
vm1 vml method [20] is briefly explained and then the proposed higher-
order neural partial differentiation is theoretically developed, which
where bvl represents the lth element of the bias of the first hidden can be used for the nonlinear parameter-estimation problem. This
layer. Similarly, the output of the first hidden-layer neurons can be methodology is based on the partial differentiation of the neural
~ U~ T ~   g

written as X~  g
~ ,
~ where output and is performed analytically at the end of training using the
terms computed during the training. Therefore, this does not require
g~  1g
1 g
2  g
i  g
k T post-training neural processing, unlike the Delta method [12] and
its variants. The basic assumption is that a trained neural network
 X0 X1 : : : Xi : : : Xm T Rm1 represents the mapping function between the inputs and outputs
8 explicitly. Hence, the output variables can be differentiated, with
The nonlinear activation function defined by Eq. (3) is g
:. The respect to the input variables, to yield the first-order derivatives. If the
weight matrix U~ is defined as mapping is correct, then it is possible to find the higher-order
2 3 derivatives. However, the derivatives thus computed will deteriorate
bu1 ::: bum in accuracy due to the errors in mapping as the order is increased.
6 u11 ::: u1m 7 Therefore, due to the errors in the inputoutput mapping, the
6 7
U~  6 .. .. .. 7 (5) derivatives will differ from the actual values as the order increases.
4 . . . 5 For the current application, aircraft motion and control variables
un1 ::: unm are the inputs, and the aerodynamic forces and moments are the
outputs for the neural network. The partial derivative of the neural
where bum is the mth element of the weights related to the bias of output Z~ with respect to the augmented input vector ~ can be written
the input layer. The input to the neural network denoted by the using the chain rule of partial differentiation as
augmented input vector ~ can be defined as ~  1a~ T T
  0 1 : : : n T , where a~ Rn is the input vector excluding the






bias term. The normalization of the inputs and the outputs is carried Z~ Z~ Z~ norm Y~ X~ ~ norm
 (9)
out using Eq. (6): ~ Z~norm Y~ X~ ~ norm ~

Zi Zi;min
Zi;norm  Zi;normmin 
Zi;normmax Zi;normmin  (6) where
Zi;max Zi;min
2 3
where Zi;normmax and Zi;normmin denote the upper and the lower limits of Z1 Z1


the normalization range for Zi respectively, while Zi;max and Zi;min Z~ 6 0 n7
6 .. 7
represent the maximum and the minimum values of Zi respectively.  6 ... ..
. . 7 (10)
~ 4 Z Z
5
Zi;norm is the normalized value of the output variable Zi . In this paper, k
0 k
n
Zi;normmax  0.9 and Zi;normmin  0.9; therefore, Eq. (6) maps the
outputs in the range 0.9; 0.9. The normalization range can be even
higher (say, 1.01.0) provided the output neurons are linear. But in and
4 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE

2 Z1
3
0 0 control derivatives can be computed at the end of training without
Z1;norm

 6
6 0 Z2
0
7
7
adding the burden of post-training data processing, or they can be
Z~ 6 Z2;norm 7 computed after each iteration. For example, in Eq. (13), all the
6 .. .. .. .. 7 (11)
Z~norm 6
4 . . . .
7
5
diagonal terms are actually calculated at the start of training, which is
Zk obvious from Eq. (14) that represents the ith term of the diagonal
0 0 Zk;norm elements of the matrix in Eq. (13). In fact, each diagonal element is a
constant that is fixed by the minimum and maximum of the particular
is a diagonal matrix of size
k k. The second, third, and fourth input variable and the limits of the normalization range [see Eq. (12)].
terms on the right-hand side in Eq. (9) are matrices of size Similarly, the diagonal terms in Eq. (11) are calculated at the end of

k
l  1,

l  1
m  1, and

m  1
n  1; and training. These terms may also be computed for the performance
the fifth term is a diagonal matrix of size
n  1
n  1, similar to evaluation at an intermediate stage of the training that requires
that in Eq. (11). The ith diagonal term in the matrix on the right-hand denormalized outputs. Denormalization of the outputs is necessary
side in Eq. (11) can be written as because, at the start of training, they are normalized using Eq. (6).
Similarly, in Eqs. (1517), the updated weight matrices W, ~ V,
~ and U,~
Zi Zi;max Zi;min respectively, are available during training, i.e., w~ k1 , etc. The partial
 (12)
Zi;norm Zi;normmax Zi;normmin differential vector terms appearing in Eqs. (1517) are also available
because these terms are computed in the scaled conjugate gradient
where the term
Zi;normmax Zi;normmin   1.8 in the present case. algorithm while computing the partial differential of the performance
Similarly, 
~ norm 
~  can be written as index (error function) with respect to the weight vector, i.e., E 0
w ~
(this is common to all gradient-based methods). Thus, all the terms
2 3 required for computing the partial differential are available. This
1 0 0

 60 1;norm 7 saves time and effort, unlike that required for the Delta method in the
~ norm 6 1 0 7 post-training phase. The derivatives thus obtained at different data
6
6 .. .. .. 7
7 (13)
~ 4. . . 0 5 points are averaged and their standard deviations are calculated,
n;norm which can be used to compute the relative standard deviations, which
0 0 n
also correspond to the CramerRao bound for nonstatistical
approaches like the equation error method using the equation
In Eq. (13), the ith (i 0) diagonal term of the matrix 
~ norm 
~ 
can be written as Standard Deviation
RSTD  100% (18)
Average
i;norm i;normmax i;normmin
 (14)
i i;max i;min Similarly, the equations for the second-order partial derivatives, using
the notations described earlier, can be written as
Here, i;min and i;max represent the minimum and the maximum








values of the ith input variable, respectively. Since the output layer Z~ Z~ Z~ norm Y~ X~ ~ norm
does not have any nonlinearity, 
Z~norm 
Y
~ can be written as  (19)
~ ~ ~ Z~norm Y~ X~ ~ norm ~
2 3
Z1;norm Z1;norm Z1;norm


 6 ZY 0 Y 1
Z2;norm
Y l
Z2;norm 7







Z~norm 6 2;norm 7 Z~ Z~ Z~norm Y~ X~ ~ norm
6 Y 0 Y 1 Y l 7
6 7  W~ T (15)  (20)
Y~ 6 .. .. .. .. 7 ~ ~ Z~ norm ~ Y~ X~ ~ norm ~
4 . . . . 5
Zk;norm Z2;norm Zn;norm
Y 0 Y 1 Y l







Z~ Z~ Z~norm Y~ X~
because the outputs of the neurons are obtained in the normalized 
~
form during training. Similarly, 
Y
~ can be written as
X ~ ~ Z~norm ~norm Y~ X~ ~ norm

~ 

2 32 3T norm ~ norm
(21)
0 0 0 bv1 bvl ~ ~
6 76 7

 60 f0 0 76 v11 v1l 7
Y~ 6 1 76 7 where ~ is the same input vector as ~ . It can be observed from
6 76 7
6 . . .. .. 76 .. .. .. 7 Eqs. (1114) that Z~Z and ~norm
~
X~ 6 .. .. . . 76 . . . 7 ~ are constants; therefore, these two
4 54 5 norm
matrices are not differentiated [Eq. (21)]. In the same way, the higher-
0 0 fl0 vm1 vml order partial derivatives can be obtained using the chain rule.
 diag0f10 f20 fl0 V~ T (16)
C. Analysis of Estimates
It is essential to analyze the first- and higher-order derivatives, thus
~
and 
X
~ norm  is written as
obtained, to assess whether they accurately represent the linear/
2 32 3T nonlinear model of the aerodynamic force and moment equations
0 0 0 bu1 bum embedded in the dataset. Let us consider a dataset pertaining to a
6 76 7

 6 0 g0 0 76 u11 u1m 7 multi-input and single-output system. Let the model embedded in this
x~ 6 1 76 7
dataset be represented by a polynomial :
6
6 . . .. ..
76
76 .. ..
7
.. 7
~ norm 6 .. .. . .76 . . . 7
4 54 5
; q; e   A0  A1  A2 q  A3 e  A4 2
0 0 0
gm un1 unm
 A5 q2  A6 2e  A7 e  A8 q  A9 3  : : : (22)
 diag0g10 g20 gi0 gl0 U~ T (17)
where Ai (i  0; 1; 2 : : : ) is a coefficient; is the angle of attack; q is
The matrices listed previously are available during training of the the pitch rate; and e is the elevator deflection, which serve as the
neural network, and therefore do not incur extra computational input to the neural network. The neural output Z  is the pitch
burden, unlike the Delta method and its variants. The stability and _ The objective is to estimate the coefficient Ai such
acceleration q.

that, in the trained state, the neural network output represents this
polynomial. This is achieved by minimizing a mean square cost
function as described earlier. The neural partial differentiation
method can be applied to the trained neural network to obtain the
first- and higher-order partial derivatives. The first derivative with
respect to can be written as
Z may vary slightly for the different sets of initial weights, if two or
  A1  2A4  A7 e  A8 q  3A9 2  : : :
where Z is the neural output. The first derivative of with respect
to is obviously a function of and the other variables, provided
polynomial is of degree two or more. Equation (23) shows that the
first-order partial derivative Z
does not represent the coefficient A1 ,
i.e., Z
A1 ; rather, it includes the effect of higher-degree
coefficients. This problem can be resolved
 by setting  e  q 
0 in Eq. (23), resulting in A1  Z 
0 , which is the correct value of
the coefficient A1 . Moreover, if the higher-degree terms are negligi-
ble, then the first derivative correctly represents the coefficients A1 ,
provided derivatives are averaged over all the data points or obtained
by setting  e  q  0 as suggested previously. For a nonlinear
model, the second-order partial derivative with respect to can be
written as
2 Z 2
 2  2A4  6A9  : : :
2
The coefficient A4 is obtained by again setting   e  q  0 in
Eq. (24) and can be written as A4  12 Z2 0 . In general, the
2
coefficient An corresponding to the n term can be written as
An  n!1 Zn 0 . In the same way, coefficients corresponding to the
n
different variables of a higher degree can be determined. It is obvious
from the preceding discussion that, if the function is linear, then the
first-order derivatives will naturally be sufficiently close to the
corresponding coefficients provided the MSE is small (an order of
106 , as observed through simulation); otherwise, averaging of the
derivatives needs to be carried out as explained previously. However,
even for a dataset corresponding to a linear function , the neural
mapping will not represent a first-degree polynomial. Although such
higher-degree terms will be negligible, but can be observed if a plot of
the first-order derivative corresponding to the different data points is
obtained as shown in Fig. 18. The plot would show small oscillations
for the large values of the input variables, while it would be flat where
the input variables are small. On the other hand, for a nonlinear model
where the aerodynamic coefficients are a function of the motion and
control variables, the oscillations in the first derivative will be
naturally present.
v
uP
u P PM PL
t p1  m1
l1 Y lp vlm wkl Zkp Xmp umi p1 m1 l1P lp
STD 
where
PP
p1
is the average (AVG) value of the derivatives computed for different data points. For M  1 (one neuron in first hidden layer), Eq. (25) reduces to
v
uP PL
u P
t p1 
l1 Y lp vlm wkl Zkp Xmp umi
STD 
where the subscript m  1. The subscript p stands for the pth data point, while P stands for the total number of data points. Taking the term umi
outside the square-root sign, Eq. (27) reduces to
v
uP PL
u P
t p1 
l1 Y lp vlm wkl Zkp Xmp
0 0
STD 
SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE 5
The aforementioned approach of extracting the coefficients,
corresponding to the higher-degree terms, has certain limitations. As
the degree of the polynomial that models the aerodynamic force or
moment increases, the equations for finding the higher-order deriva-
tives using the neural partial differentiation become increasingly
complex. Another problem associated with this method for esti-
mating the higher-order coefficients is that the estimated coefficients
(23)
more neurons are used in the first hidden layer. This simply implies
that the coefficients thus estimated need to be averaged out from
different runs. Moreover, obtaining a proper neural architecture
involves trial and error.
Alternatively, the coefficients corresponding to the higher-order
terms can be estimated using the neural partial differentiation by
assuming that ; 2 ; 3 ; q; q2 ; q3 ; e ; 2e ; 3e : : : are the input
variables, instead of considering , q, and e as the input variables.
Using this formulation, the coefficients of the higher-degree terms
can be estimated by obtaining the first-order neural partial derivatives
as in the linear case. The constant term (A0 ) in polynomial
equation (22) can be determined by setting all the inputs to zero and
finding the corresponding output. This is possible because the neural
network extracts all the information in the data and stores it in the
form of optimized weights after the training is over. Moreover, the
actual inputs to the neural network are normalized, which makes
(24) them nonzero unless the data are symmetric. In addition, the bias term
in the input layer ensures that at least one input to the neural network
is never zero. The same holds true for the estimates obtained using the
neural partial differentiation when all the inputs are set to zero.
However, the standard deviation, or the scatter in this case, vanishes
because the factor causing the scatter is removed by setting all the
inputs to zero. The value of the constant, thus estimated, is dependent
on the MSE achieved. The method of estimating the constant term
described here is an innovative approach, compared to the other
neural estimation processes [20], in which the problem of large
standard deviation does not arise.
In the case where the inputs to the neural network are highly noisy,
the estimated coefficients may be biased. Such cases will be obvious
from the MSE, which will not decay below 103 but may yield small
relative standard deviation. A MSE of the order of 104 105 may
be a practical value for the actual flight data to get realistic estimates
of the derivatives. In the absence of bias in the estimates (i.e., MSE of
the order of 106 ), the relative standard deviation is a good indication
of the quality of estimates. It can be shown that the relative standard
deviation (STD) of the partial derivative of a neural output Zk , i.e.,

Zk i , can be written as
PP PM PL 0

Y vlm wkl Zk0 Xm0 p umi 2
0 0 0 p

(25)
P
PM PL
m1
l1 Y l0p vlm wkl Zk0 p Xm0 p umi
 AVG (26)
P
PP PL 0 

l1 Y l vlm wkl Zk0 Xm0 p umi 2
0 0 0 p1 p
P
p

(27)
P
PP PL 0 

l1 Y l vlm wkl Zk0 Xm0 p 2
0 p1
P
p p

umi (28)
P
 6 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE

10
11 Therefore, the relative standard deviation can be written as for a small sample; and ,
etc., is the true value. Taking summation
over all the data points on both the sides in Eq. (23) yields
STD
RSTD  100%
AVG X X
s
PP PL 0 
P
Z P

PP PL 0 2  A1  2A4

   A7

e    A8
q
 


Y v w Z 0 X 0 p1

Y v w Z 0 X 0
l1 lp lm kl kp mp
 p1
p1
p1 l1 lp lm kl kp mp P
umi
 PP PL 0 P 0 X 0
 3A9

 2  : : :  (31)
p1

Y v
l1 lp lm kl kp
w Z mp
P umi
which can be expanded as
100% (29)
X
X X X X
This can be further simplified and can be written as
P
Z P P P P
 PA1  2A4
2A4  A7
e  A7
r p1
p1 p1 p1 p1
P P P P
P
p1

L
Y 0 v w Z 0 x 0

l1 lp lm kl kp mp
P
p1

L
Y 0 v w Z 0 x 0 p2
l1 lp lm kl kp mp X
P X
P X
P 
RSTD  PP PL
P  A8 q
A8  3A9

 2  : : : (32)
l1 Y lp vlm wkl Zkp xmp P

0 0 0
p1
p1 p1 p1

100% (30) and can be reduced to

12
The quantities Xm0 , Y l0 , and Zk0 are the derivatives of the outputs of

various neural layers with respect to the corresponding activation X
P
Z X
P X
P X
P
 PA1  2A4
A7
e  A8 q

variable (activation potential). The subscript p stands for the pth data p1
p1 p1 p1
point. It can be observed in Eq. (30) that the quantities Xm0 , Y l0 , and Zk0 
are the same for all the input variables because m  1; they vary only X
P
 3A9

 2  : : : (33)
with data points. In addition, the weights are fixed quantities after the
p1
training is over. It can be observed that the input-layer weights do not
appear in Eq. (30). Thus, the relative standard deviations of the partial
If the MSE is of the order of 106 , then the coefficients of the terms in
derivatives for an output with respect to the inputs will be the same,
,

etc., will be negligible provided the embedded model is linear, or is
provided there is only one neuron in the first hidden layer.
interpreted to be linear, by assuming the higher-degree terms as
It will be evident from the next section that, for modeling the linear
independent variables. This holds as long as there is one neuron in the
parameter-estimation problem, we should use only one neuron in the
first hidden layer, which allows only a linear model to be fitted. It can
first hidden layer. Keeping just one neuron in the first hidden layer
be observed that the term
makes the stability and control derivative estimates independent of
the initial weights. Moreover, it enforces a linear model to be fitted to X
P
the inputoutput data. This also ensures a low standard deviation of

 2
the estimates. Even for the nonlinear models, only one neuron in the p1
first hidden layer should be used when the nonlinear model is
interpreted as a linear model by considering the higher-degree terms is always positive but will not contribute significantly if only one
as different independent variables as explained earlier. The number of neuron is used in the first hidden layer. Thus, we see that all the
neurons in the output layer will be the same as the number of outputs, higher-degree terms will be negligible if the MSE is of the order of
while the minimum number of neurons in the second hidden layer 106 or better, and only one neuron is used in the first hidden layer.
will be equal to the number of inputs. This implies that only the However, if the input data are highly contaminated with noise, then
number of neurons in the second hidden layer needs to be fixed. In the MSE will not decay below 103 as observed through simulation
fact, sensitivity of the estimates to the number of neurons in the (it is problem dependent). Therefore, even with one neuron in the first
second hidden layer is negligible. Therefore, if the data are sufficient, hidden layer, the coefficient A1 and the other coefficients may differ
then using even more neurons in the second hidden layer than the from the actual values, indicating biased estimates. In such a case,
number of inputs would not affect the estimates. This ascertains the some of the higher derivatives may be significant. The difference
architecture of the neural network to be used for the estimation between the averaged estimate and the estimate obtained by setting
purpose. all the inputs to zero is a measure of the effect of such higher-degree
It should be noted that, even though a single hidden-layer neural terms. For the cases where the MSE is not less than 103 , the output
network can approximate any function [23], the number of neurons reconstructed using the estimated derivatives will differ from the
required to approximate the function may be significantly large. In measured output, implying poor estimation of the derivatives. In
fact, many problems cannot be solved using a single hidden layer, or addition, the match between the actual and the neural predicted
they may be computationally very costly if at all possible. Increasing values of the output will be poor. Thus, it can be concluded that biased
the number of hidden layers reduces the number of neurons in the estimation is due to a high MSE (not less than 103 ), which results
network, making it computationally more viable. For this reason, a from highly noisy input data. When the MSE at the end of training is
total of two hidden layers are used, where the first hidden layer of the order of 106 or better, the higher-degree terms will be
contains only one neuron as stated earlier. negligible, as suggested previously, yielding
From the earlier analysis, it can be observed that the derivatives are X
not affected by the existence of the measurement bias, either in the
P
Z
 PA1 (34)
inputs or the outputs, due to the partial differentiation approach. For p1

example, in Eq. (23), the biases in the inputs and the output are
eliminated due to partial differentiation provided the biases are which results in
constant. Let us assume that the input variables are contaminated with
the Gaussian white noise with zero mean, and write 
 , 1X P
Z
e 
e  , and q  q
 , where , , and are the white noises A1  (35)
P p1
with zero mean, i.e.,
X
P implying almost the exact value of the coefficient. The coefficient
0 thus obtained will be sufficiently close to the value obtained by
p1 setting all the neural inputs to zero, i.e.,
 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE 7

Table 1 Stability and control derivatives estimated (EST) using LS, NPD, and SOEM methods
LS SOEM NPD
Parameters NV [4] EST EST RSTD, % AVG STD RSTD, %
Zw 1.4249 1.4249 1.4268 0.0090 1.4246 0.00080 0.05657
Zq 1.4768 1.4768 1.4768 Fixeda 1.4782 0.00084 0.05657
Ze 6.2632 6.2632 6.1711 0.0169 6.2665 0.00354 0.05657
q_ w 0.2163 0.2163 0.2170 0.0065 0.2162 0.00012 0.05584
q_ q 3.7067 3.7067 3.7201 0.0071 3.7055 0.00207 0.05584
q_ e 12.7840 12.7840 12.8148 0.0087 12.7808 0.00714 0.05584
a
Zq is kept fixed at the nominal value to avoid high correlation.


Z
A1 
0;e 0;q0
In the next section, the analytical results of this section are verified
using the actual and simulated flight data for unstable aircraft.
III. Results and Discussion
In this section, the neural partial differentiation methods,
developed in the last section, are applied to simulated data of a de
Havilland DHC-2 Beaver aircraft linear model, modified to be
unstable, and actual flight data of the X-31A aircraft to estimate the
stability and control derivatives for the longitudinal mode.
A. Linear Unstable Aircraft
As a first case, open-loop flight data are generated for a de
Havilland DHC-2 Beaver aircraft linear model [4,24], modified to be
unstable, and processed for the evaluation of the methods developed
in the last section. The simulated flight data, integrated at an interval
of 0.05 s and spanning 11.5 s, corresponds to an overall unstable
13 system that is achieved by adjusting the static stability parameter [4]
q_ w for a nominal speed of 44.57 ms. One of the eigenvalues of the
system matrix for the system described by Eqs. (36) and (37),
q_  q_ w w  q_ q q  q_ e e (36)
w_  Zw w 
U0  Zq q  Ze e (37)
is positive and corresponds to the unstable mode. Here, w is the
14 velocity along the z-body axis, e is the elevator deflection, q is the
pitch rate, and U0 is the initial forward speed. The observation
_ w, and N Z . N Z , the normal acceleration, is
variables are q, q,
defined as
N z  Zw w  Zq q  Ze e (38)
The coefficients Zw , Zq , Ze , q_ w , q_ q , and q_ e are to be estimated from neural approach.
the simulated observation data. The nominal values (NVs) of the
coefficients along with the elevator input [1] are taken, and state
equations (36) and (37) are integrated using the fourth-order Runge
Kutta algorithm to generate the state variables w and q. The
observations q, w, q,_ and N z are generated using Eqs. (3638). The
stability and control derivatives Zw , Zq , Ze , q_ w , q_ q , and q_ e are
estimated using the neural partial differentiation (NPD) method.
Moreover, the least-squares (LS) estimation combined with the
equation error approach and the stabilized output error (SOME)
method are also applied to the simulated data to estimate the stability
and control derivatives. The number of neurons used in the first
hidden layer is one, while in the second hidden layer and the output
layer, the number of neurons is three and one, respectively (131
architecture). The output-layer neuron consists of a summation
function only, i.e., no nonlinearity.
The values of the stability and control derivatives estimated using
the neural partial differentiation approach from the simulated data
(without noise) are compared with the nominal, least-squares, and
stabilized output error methods values. The results are presented in 15 the simulated linear aircraft model.
Table 1. The identification of an open-loop system is carried out by
treating the control surface deflection e as the neural input. The
neural network is trained for 5000 iterations. It can be observed from
Table 1 that the parameters estimated using the neural partial
differentiation approach closely match with the nominal values and
the least-squares estimates. The relative standard deviations of the
derivatives, obtained using the neural partial differentiation
approach, corresponding to the outputs q_ and N z , are according to
the conclusions arrived at in the previous section. This supports the
mathematical validity of the derivations carried out in the last section
regarding the relative standard deviation of the estimated parameters.
The relative standard deviation for the least-squares method is not
given in Table 1, as this approach yields the exact value for noise-free
data. The relative standard deviations for the stabilized output error
method seem to be better than the neural approach, which is due to the
noise-free input and output data. It is to be noted that one of the
parameters was kept fixed for the stabilized output error method
while estimating to avoid high correlation. The relative standard
deviation in the case of the neural method is slightly larger than that
for the stabilized output error method, as it is derived by averaging the
derivatives at various data points.
In Figs. 2 and 3, the actual and the neural network predicted N z and
_ respectively, are plotted, showing a good match. In Fig. 4, the rms
q,
values of the estimated parameters are plotted against the iteration
number. It is clear that the convergence takes place within 200
iterations. However, the fine adjustment in the weights continues with
an increase in the iteration number and is manifested as a small
change in the MSE. This leads to a better estimate of the derivatives,
which closely matches with the nominal and the least-squares values.
Plots of the stability and control derivatives, estimated using the
neural partial differentiation approach against the data points, are
shown in Fig. 5. The estimated values of the derivatives

Ze ; Zq ; Zw ; q_ e ; q_ q ; q_ w  are quite close to the nominal/actual and
the least-squares estimates, as shown in Table 1. It is to be noted that
the least-squares method, which is an analytical approach, yields
exact values of the derivatives, as the data are free from noise. The
results obtained previously support the theoretical analysis of the
previous section, suggesting efficacy and accuracy of the proposed
5
4 Actual
Predicted
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
0 50 100 150 200 250
Data Points
Fig. 2 Actual and neural predicted values of normal acceleration Nz for
8 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE

0.8 4
Actual 3
0.6 Predicted
2

Input and Output Variables

0.4 1
0
0.2
1
0 2
w
3 q
0.2
4 e
0.4 Nz
5 .
q
6
0.6 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Data Points
0.8
0 50 100 150 200 250
Fig. 6 Inputs [w
ms, q
rads, and e
rad] and outputs [Nz
ms2 )
_
and q
rads 2 ] simulated at an interval of 0.05 s for a duration of 5 s,
Data Points
yielding 100 data points for the nonlinear unstable aircraft.
Fig. 3 Actual and neural predicted values of pitch acceleration q_ for the
simulated linear aircraft model.
_ where N z is defined
and the observation variables are N z , w, q, and q,
B. Nonlinear Unstable Aircraft as
As a second case, a nonlinear aircraft model is simulated with the
same elevator input as for the linear aircraft model (de Havilland N z  Zw w  Zq q  Ze e  Zw2 w2  Zq2 q2 (41)
DHC-2 Beaver) described in the previous subsection. This is
achieved by adding higher-order terms to the equations of motion for The coefficients of the second-degree terms are taken to be 10% of the
the linear model. The resulting state equations can be written as values of the corresponding linear coefficients. This ensures that
divergence in the states does not take place during a short duration.
q_  q_ w w  q_ q q  q_ e e  q_ w2 w2  q_ q2 q2 (39) The simulated w, q, N z , and q_ along with the control variable e are
plotted in Fig. 6. The classical techniques, such as the filter error
method or output error method, can be applied in the modified form to
w_  Zw w 
U0  Zq q  Ze e  Zw2 w2  Zq2 q2 (40) such problems. But this requires a priori estimates of the stability and
control derivatives, which are obviously not accurate, and therefore
may lead to divergence in some cases. However, the neural partial
14
differentiation approach and the least-squares method do not pose
any problem, as they do not require either assuming a priori estimates
12 .
q or propagating the states. In the neural approach, w, w2 , q, q2 , and e
RMS Values of Parameters

e are taken as the inputs to the neural network, while N z and q_ serve as
10 the outputs. A total of 100 data points simulated at an interval of
0.05 s and spanning over 5 s are taken for training the neural network.
8
Z e The neural network consists of one neuron in the first hidden layer, 10
6 neurons in the second hidden layer, and one in the output layer (110
. 1). The output neuron consists of a summation function only.
qq
4 In Figs. 7 and 8, the actual, neural predicted, and reconstructed N z
and q_ using the estimates from the neural partial differentiation
2 Zq
Zw .
qw approach are plotted, respectively. It can be observed that the actual,
0 neural predicted, and reconstructed values match well. Figures 9 and
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 10 show the rms values of the derivatives of N z and q, _ respectively,
Iterations
against the iteration number. The convergence takes place within 500
Fig. 4 Convergence of rms values of estimated normal acceleration iterations for both q_ and N z . However, further iterations ensure
derivatives Ze , Zq , and Zw and pitch acceleration derivatives q_ e , q_ q , and
q_ w , with iterations for the simulated linear aircraft model.
accuracy of the estimates. In Figs. 11 and 12, the estimated values of
the coefficients using the neural partial differentiation approach are
plotted.
2
qw 4
0 Actual
Estimated Values of Parameters

Zw 3 Predicted
2 Zq Reconstructed
2
4 1
q
q
0
Nz(m/s 2 )

6
Z 1
e
8
2
10
3
12 q 4
e
5
14
0 50 100 150 200 250
6
Data Points 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Fig. 5 Estimated values of normal acceleration derivatives Ze , Zq , and Data Points
Zw and the estimated pitch acceleration derivatives q_ e , q_ q , and q_ w Fig. 7 Actual and neural predicted values of Nz for training data, and
corresponding to different data points for the simulated linear aircraft Nz reconstructed using estimates from the neural partial differentiation
model. approach for the nonlinear unstable aircraft model.
 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE 9

0.8 0
Actual
0.6

Estimated Values of Parameters

Predicted 1
Reconstructed
0.4 2 Zw
0.2 3 Zq
q (rad/s 2 )

0 Z w2
4
. 0.2
Zq 2
5
Z
0.4 e
6
0.6
7
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
0.8
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Data Points
Data Points Fig. 11 Estimated derivatives of Nz for the nonlinear unstable aircraft
Fig. 8 Actual and neural predicted values of q_ on training data, and q_ model using the neural partial differentiation method.
reconstructed using estimates from the neural partial differentiation
approach for the nonlinear unstable aircraft model.
differentiation approach is comparable to the least-squares approach
for noise-free data.
The results of estimation using the least-squares, neural partial
differentiation, and stabilized output error methods are presented in C. Linear Unstable Aircraft (Noisy Data)
Table 2. The least-squares approach yields results that exactly match
As a third case, simulated noisy data for the unstable linear aircraft
with the nominal values because the observations are noise free. The
(de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver) are considered for assessing the effect
results obtained using the neural partial differentiation approach also
of the noise in the inputs and outputs on the parameter estimates. The
match closely with the nominal values. It has been observed that
noisy data are generated by adding Gaussian white noise with zero
estimates do not change with different sets of initializing weights.
mean to the motion and control variables obtained after integrating
However, the estimates from the stabilized output error method are
the equations of motion. The standard deviations of the noise are
far from the actual values, showing its failure for such applications.
shown in Table 3. The noise generated is eliminated whenever the
This method requires fixing the stabilization matrix, in addition to a
absolute value lies beyond the 3 range, where is the standard
priori values of the stability and control derivatives. Moreover, the
deviation of the noise.
observation data belong to a nonlinear unstable aircraft. All these
The results of the neural partial differentiation approach along with
factors combined together are accountable for the failure of the
the other methods are presented in Table 4. It can be observed that the
stabilized output error method. The performance of the neural partial
performance of the neural partial differentiation approach
deteriorates as compared to the noise-free case (first case), which
20 was theoretically predicted earlier. The stability and control
Zw derivative estimates [AVG (0)] obtained by setting all the input
Zq variables to zero in the neural partial differentiation approach are
15
better than those obtained using the least-squares approach for the
RMS Values of Parameters

Zw2
noisy data. It is to be noted that scatter in the estimates occurs due to
Z q2
10 the small contribution of the higher-degree terms in the modeling
Z
e polynomial [Eq. (33)]. The neural network extracts all the
information available in the observation data during the training.
5
Therefore, setting all the inputs to zero merely eliminates the
variation in the estimates due to the presence of the higher-degree
0 terms. Thus, the standard deviation, and hence the relative standard
deviation of the estimates [AVG(0)], vanish. This is applicable for the
5
noisy data case, wherein setting the input variables to zero eliminates
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 the effect of noise significantly. The relative standard deviation in the
Iterations case of the least-squares approach is more than that for the neural
Fig. 9 Convergence of rms values of derivatives of Nz with iteration for
approach [AVG(0)]. Also, the relative standard deviation for the
the nonlinear unstable aircraft model.
least-squares approach for the normal acceleration derivative is quite

14
. 0
12 qw
.
Estimated Values of Parameters

qq
RMS Values of Parameters

10 2
.
qw2
. 4
8 qq 2
q
.
.
q w
6 w
e 6
q
.
4 .q
q 2
8
w
2 .
qq 2
10
q
.
0
12 e
2
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Iterations Data Points
Fig. 10 Convergence of rms values of derivatives of q_ with iteration for Fig. 12 Estimated derivatives of q_ for the nonlinear unstable aircraft
the nonlinear unstable aircraft model. model using the neural partial differentiation method.
10 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE

Table 2 Stability and control derivative estimates for the nonlinear unstable aircraft
estimated using the LS, NPD, and SOEM methods.
LS SOEM NPD
Parameters NV EST EST RSTD, % AVG STD RSTD, %
q_ w 0.2163 0.2163 0.2746 0.6040 0.2162 0.0001 0.05370
q_ q 3.7067 3.7067 4.9378 0.5892 3.7054 0.0020 0.05370
q_ e 12.784 12.784 14.9187 0.3764 12.780 0.0069 0.05370
q_ w2 0.02163 0.02163 0.02802 1.7907 0.02163 0.00001 0.05370
q_ q2 0.37067 0.37067 0.53602 15.7784 0.37138 0.00020 0.05370
Zw 1.4249 1.4249 1.4375 0.3151 1.4246 0.0007 0.04729
Zq 1.4768 1.4768 1.4768 Fixeda 1.4767 0.0007 0.04729
Ze 6.2632 6.2632 5.5333 2.0964 6.2632 0.0029 0.04729
Zw2 0.14249 0.14249 0.14043 1.2791 0.14239 0.00007 0.04729
Zq2 0.14768 0.14768 0.50088 61.9413 0.15274 0.00007 0.04729
a
Zq is kept fixed at the nominal value for processing.

Table 3 Standard deviation of
noise added to different input and
output variables for noisy data
Variables STD
w 0.05 ms
q 0.005 rads
e 0.005 rad
w_ 0.005 ms2
q_ 0.005 rads2
large as compared to the neural approach (AVG), especially for Zq,
which results from high correlation.
In fact, in the absence of the nominal values of the parameters to be
estimated, the estimates with lower relative standard deviation and
better fit would be considered. Therefore, the AVG(0) is preferable
compared to the estimates from the other methods. Moreover, the
proximity of the AVG and AVG(0) provides a check for the accuracy
of the neural estimates. This is especially applicable to noisy data.
Any large difference in the AVG and the AVG(0) reflects the effect of
noise and the higher-degree terms on the AVG. Although the neural
approach is computationally expensive compared to the least-squares
method, it yields better estimates and less uncertainty compared to
the other methods, including the least-squares approach for noisy
data. In many cases, the least-squares approach produces so large an
uncertainty that it is not useful. In addition, the neural approach can
be used to ascertain the structure of the aerodynamic coefficients with
much ease using weight pruning, which becomes too tedious using
other methods.
The stabilized output error approach also produces biased results,
even though it is specifically meant for the noisy data, as shown in
Table 4. Moreover, the relative standard deviation for the stabilized
output error method is higher than that for the neural method. It can be
concluded that, although the neural partial differentiation approach
produces somewhat biased estimates [AVG(0)] for the noisy dataset,
most of the estimates are better than those from the stabilized output
error approach and the least-squares approach. In the case of
stabilized output error method, Zq needs to be fixed to the nominal/
actual value for processing the other derivatives. The cases where the
neural partial differentiation approach is likely to produce biased
estimates can be identified by the fact that the MSE will not decay
below 103 with iterations as observed through simulation. In fact,
the permissible limit of MSE depends on the problem. If the
quantities involved are very large, then small MSE cannot be
expected. For a small noise-to-signal ratio, the MSE will be small
(less than 104 ); therefore, the estimates will be reliable and the
relative standard deviation will be small for the averaged estimates
(AVG) or will vanish for the estimates obtained by setting all the input
variables to zero [AVG(0)].
Theils inequality, bias, and variance coefficients [1], defined in
Eqs. (4244), respectively, are used to assess the quality of fit
between the observed and the reconstructed data:
q
PP 
p1
dp Zp 
1 2
P
TIC  q
PP q
PP  (42)
1 2 1 2
P p1 dp  P p1 Zp

Table 4 Stability and control derivatives estimated using LS, NPD, and SOEM methods on the simulated noisy dataset
LS SOEM NPD
Parameter NV EST RSTD, % EST RSTD, % AVG(0)a AVG RSTD, %
Zw 1.4249 1.4293 0.7733 1.4750 1.4083 1.4326 1.4267 0.5020
Zq 1.4768 1.3850 10.3366 1.4768 Fixedb 1.4100 1.4040 0.5020
Ze 6.2632 5.9959 4.8883 6.3995 8.0281 6.0624 6.0377 0.5020
q_ w 0.2163 0.1781 5.3335 0.2245 3.0946 0.1811 0.1720 5.4034
q_ q 3.7067 3.2224 3.8176 4.4482 2.5611 3.3054 3.1391 5.4034
q_ e 12.7840 11.6367 2.1643 13.1867 1.6719 11.9911 11.3880 5.4034
TICT
Zc 0.015488 0.015557 0.015498
TICBT
Zc 4.8115 1019 1.6144 107 1.0788 105
TICVT
Zc 2.3998 104 8.9341 103 1.3486 103
TICT
q _ d 0.086460 0.086855 0.087429
TICBT
q _ d 4.5878 1018 4.6839 106 3.9725 106
TICVT
q _ d 7.4754 103 1.5817 102 2.8808 102
a
AVG(0) denotes estimates obtained by setting the input variables to zero in the NPD method.
b
Zq is kept fixed at the nominal value for processing.
c
TIC T
Z, TICB T
Z, and TICV T
Z denote Theils inequality, bias, and variance coefficients,
respectively, for the normal acceleration on the training dataset.
d
TIC T
q,
_ TICB T
q, _ and TICV T
q _ denote Theils inequality, bias, and variance coefficients,
respectively, for the pitch acceleration on the training dataset.
 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE 11

15

d
Z

2
TICB  1 PP (43)
p1
dp Zp 
2
P
.

RMS Values of Parameters

10 q
e

z 2
TICV  1 PP d (44) .
Z
p1
dp Zp 
2 5 e
P qq
Zq
Here, d
and Z
represent the average values of the observed and Zw
reconstructed normal acceleration or pitch acceleration, respectively.
0 .
q
w
Similarly, d and z represent the standard deviations of the observed
and reconstructed normal acceleration or pitch acceleration,
5
respectively. Theils inequality coefficients for the least-squares 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
and neural partial differentiation approach (for AVG) are almost the Iterations
same (Table 4). This implies that the performances of the neural and Fig. 15 Convergence of rms values of estimated normal acceleration
the least-squares approaches are comparable in terms of time series derivatives Ze , Zq , and Zw and the pitch acceleration derivatives q_ e , q_ q ,
match. Theils inequality coefficient for the AVG(0) is somewhat and q_ w with iterations for the noisy dataset.
larger as compared to that for the LS. However, it can be observed that
the estimates AVG(0) are much closer to the nominal values as
compared to the LS. It appears that the least-squares approach tends
2 .
qw
to absorb the noise in the estimates, and thereby produces smaller 0

Estimated Values of Parameters

Theils inequality coefficients. Therefore, this yields estimates away Zq
from the nominal values. It can be observed from Table 4 that even 2 Zw
Theils inequality bias and variance coefficients for the least-squares .
qq
4
method are much better than those for the neural approach. But this
does not imply good estimates from the least-squares method, as is 6
evident from Table 4. These coefficients do not provide correct Z e
information for the noisy data; therefore, these are not presented for 8
the actual flight data considered next. It can be concluded that the .
q
estimates obtained by setting all the input variables to zero are more 10 e

reliable than the other estimates for the noisy data.

12
In Figs. 1316, the plots for the noisy data are presented. It can be 0 50 100 150 200 250
observed from Fig. 13 that the actual and the neural predicted values Data Points
Fig. 16 Estimated values of normal acceleration derivatives Ze , Zq , and
Zw and pitch acceleration derivatives q_ e , q_ q , and q_ w corresponding to
5
different data points for the noisy dataset.
reconstructed
4 actual
predicted
3
match with each other. This is due to relatively less effect of the
2
measured elevator deflection, which is quite noisy, on the
1 reconstructed normal acceleration N z . However, in the case of q, _
Nz(m/s 2 )

0 the match is poor, as shown in Fig. 14. In fact, q_ strongly depends on

1 the elevator deflection. which is highly noisy in this case, and hence
the reconstructed q_ is severely affected by this noise. In Fig. 15, the
2
rms values of the estimated derivatives as the training proceeds are
3 plotted. Figure 16 shows the variations in the estimated derivatives
4 plotted against the data points. Oscillations in the estimates are easily
5 visible, especially in the derivative q_ e . Obviously, this is because of
0 50 100 150 200 250 large noise in the input variable e , which leads to significant higher-
Data Points
degree terms in Eq. (33). All the results obtained are per the
Fig. 13 Actual, neural predicted, and reconstructed values of normal
acceleration Nz for the noisy dataset. theoretical analysis of the previous sections, and they provide insight
into the nature of the derivatives obtained using the neural partial
differentiation approach. It can be concluded that the neural estimates
0.8
[AVG(0)] are better than the least-squares and the stabilized output
reconstructed error estimates for the noisy data.
actual
0.6 predicted
0.4
D. X-31A Aircraft
Evaluation of the proposed neural partial differentiation approach
0.2 on actual flight data of the experimental unstable aircraft X-31A is
q (rad/s 2 )

0
considered as a fourth case. The X-31A aircraft was designed for
. enhanced maneuverability. It is a single-seater fighter configuration
0.2 with a takeoff gross weight of approximately 16,000 lb. The open-
loop configuration of the basic X-31A aircraft is aerodynamically
0.4
unstable in the longitudinal axis at a small angle of attack. The
0.6 numerical data for this aircraft are unavailable, and therefore data
were digitized from plots [4] for the estimation purpose. Specifically,
0.8
0 50 100 150 200 250 the plots of the state variables and control input, i.e., q, , and e and
Data Points the derived pitch acceleration q_ corresponding to the two consecutive
Fig. 14 Actual, neural predicted, and reconstructed values of pitch pitch doublets [4] were digitized. Here, q, , and e serve as the inputs
acceleration q_ for the noisy dataset. to the neural network, while q_ serves as the output. The direct
12 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE

estimation of the stability and control derivatives Cm , Cmq , and Cme preceding equation and its effect can be assumed to be absorbed in the
is not possible, as much of the information required to process the constant Cm . Nominal values of the derivatives of the parameters CL
data is not available (for example, the altitude that decides the density, and CAC
m are available [4] as given in Table 5. The observation model
which in turn decides the dynamic pressure). However, it is possible for estimating the derivatives q_ , q_ q , and q_ e using the neural partial
to estimate the derivatives q_ , q_ q , and q_ e from the digitized data. In differentiation approach can be written as
fact, q_ can be written as
q_  q_ 0  q_  q_ q q  q_ e e (50)

c
CG 1 CG
qS
q_  C  Meng (45)
Iy m Iy where q_ is the derivative of the measured pitch rate, which serves as
the output for the neural network. Here, it is obtained by the

S, and c
are the dynamic pressure, reference area, and mean
where q, digitization of the q_ plot [4] as mentioned earlier. The variables , e ,
aerodynamic chord, respectively. I y is the pitching moment of inertia, and q are available from the measurements and serve as the inputs to
CCG
m is the pitching moment coefficient about the center of gravity, the neural network. It is possible to correlate the coefficients in
and MCGeng is the moment due to the thrust of the engine about the Eq. (50) with the derivatives Cm , Cmq , and Cme ; this allows
center of gravity. If the effect of the engine is neglected, then Eq. (45) verification of the estimated coefficients q_ , q_ q , and q_ e to some
can be written as extent. Equations (48) and (49) can be combined together to yield

c
CG
qS  
q_  C (46) c

q_  A
Cm  CAC m
  Cmq
q q 
 AC 
Iy m 2V
me
e e   CL hcg 
 CAC  (51)
A simplified model for the moment about the center of gravity under
the assumption that the thrust line coincides with the drag line can be
written as Here, the canard effect is absorbed in Cm . Taking the partial derivative
of Eq. (51) with respect to the motion and control variables , q, and
CCG AC
m  Cm  CL hCG (47) e results in
where CACm is the pitching moment coefficient about the aerodynamic q_  A
CAC
m  CL hcg  (52)
center (AC) [4], hCG is a nondimensional distance measured from the
AC to the center of gravity, and CL is the lift coefficient. A lift L and a
moment MAC can be assumed to act at the aerodynamic center [4]. q_ e  A
CAC
me  CLe hcg  (53)
Eqs. (46) and (47) combined together can be written as

q_  A
CAC
m  CL hCG  (48)   
c

q_ q  A CAC
mq (54)
where A  qS

c
AC 2V
I y . The expression for Cm [4] can be written as
  Further, using Eqs. (52) and (53) hcg can be written as
c

m  Cm  Cm
  Cmq
q q 
  
CAC AC AC
2V q_ Cme q_ e Cm
hcg  (55)
me
e e   Cmcan
c c 
 CAC  AC  (49) q_ e CL q_ CLe

where the symbols have their usual meaning; and the terms such as
 , e , and q correspond to the trim state. The canard deflection is c .
For training of the neural network, the trim values need not be
computed separately because these are implicitly modeled by the
neural network. The canard effectiveness parameter
CAC
mcan
is kept fixed [4], as it is highly correlated with the angle of attack and
its estimation is not possible. Therefore, it is eliminated from the
which can be inserted into Eqs. (52) or (53) to obtain A, which in turn
can be used in Eq. (54) to find the numerical value of the term on the
right-hand side. If the numerical values of the terms on the left- and
the right-hand sides of Eq. (54) match, then the estimation is correct.
However, this verification can be done only to a certain degree, as the
digitized data are quite noisy; therefore, it is expected that the results
obtained cannot be accurate. In fact, even for the actual data
(nondigitized), the estimated derivatives [4] of CACm are quite different
than the nominal values. Thus, a good match is not expected in this
case. However, the estimated value of the hCG may be a good

Table 5 Stability and control derivatives estimated from flight data of the X-31A aircraft using LS,
NPD, and SOEM methods on the training dataset

LS SOEM NPD
Parameters NV [4] EST RSTD, % EST RSTD, % AVG(0) AVG STD RSTD, %
q_ 0 0.350 8.518 0.326 1.5765 0.351 0.351
q_ 0.251 57.094 0.111 19.2785 0.250 0.252 0.002 0.620
q_ q 0.473 9.296 0.471 6.4214 0.471 0.475 0.003 0.620
q_ e 7.504 1.8444 7.170 1.0799 7.466 7.526 0.047 0.620
CL 3.057a 2.661a
CLe 1.354a 0.863a
Cm 0.119a 0.217a 0.238*
Cmq 1.650a 0.137a 0.871a
Cme 0.571a 0.467a 0.504a
TICT 0.07987 0.08050 0.07976
TICV a 0.41189 0.44349 0.40927
a
From [4].
b
TIC V denotes Theils inequality coefficient for the verification dataset using derivatives
estimated from different methods on the training dataset.
 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE 13

Table 6 Stability and control derivative estimates of the
X-31A aircraft for the verification/test dataset obtained
using optimized weights for the training dataset
Parameters NPD
Parameters AVG RSTD, %
q_ 0 0.351
q_ 0.252 0.00475
q_ q 0.476 0.00475
q_ e 7.547 0.00475
TIC T 0.07975
TIC V 0.40030
indication of the accuracy of the estimates. Unfortunately, the
nominal value of hCG is not available. The results obtained using the
neural partial differentiation method are analyzed next and supported
by various data to show the efficacy of the neural partial
differentiation approach.
A neural network consisting of one neuron in the first hidden layer,
three neurons in the second hidden layer, and one neuron in the output
layer is used to map the inputs to the output (131). The output-layer
neuron is merely a summation function. A total of 180 data points are
used to train the neural network, while 100 data points are kept for
verification. Such a division of the dataset is not required if only one
neuron is used in the first hidden layer. A single neuron in the first
hidden layer ensures that only a linear model is fitted to the input
output data, provided the MSE is less than 104 . Reconstruction of
16 the output can also be used to ensure the proper training of the neural
network. Merely, checking on the basis of data division is not the only
way of ensuring correct training. In fact, the reconstruction technique
is much more reliable than the data division approach. Hence, no data
division was applied for the synthetic data in the first case. However,
in the present case, the data are noisy and the nominal values of the q_
derivatives are not available; therefore, to provide a double check,
data division is applied. For the test/verification data, the noise-to-
signal ratio is very high and the aircraft is about the trim state. This is
another reason for separating these data so that a good estimate can be
are almost the same, as is evident from Table 5. Theils inequality
coefficient obtained for the AVG(0) differs slightly from that for the
AVG. This is because the noise in the inputs gets incorporated in the
reconstructed q, _ yielding slightly higher or lower values of q_ than the
observed ones. However, as per the conclusion for the synthetic noisy
data, it is evident that the AVG(0) is more reliable than the other
estimates.
Theils inequality coefficients for the verification dataset
(TIC V) obtained using the estimates given in Table 5 are quite
large. This is primarily due to the large noise-to-signal ratio in the
verification data. A value of Theils inequality coefficient around 0.4
is quite acceptable for such data. In Table 6, the stability and control
derivatives obtained using the neural partial differentiation approach
on the verification data are presented. It should be noted that the
weights used for obtaining the stability and control derivatives from
the verification data are those obtained for the training set after the
learning. Therefore, the estimates do not differ drastically for the
verification dataset in spite of the fact that these data are highly noisy 18
and it is in a narrow band about the trim. Theils inequality coefficient
obtained using these estimates on the training and verification data
are of the same order as those for the estimates given in Table 5.
The root-mean-square values of the estimated derivatives on the
training data, as the training proceeds, are shown in Fig. 17 against
the iteration number. It can be observed from Fig 17 that around 3500
iterations are required for the convergence. The estimated values of
derivatives q_ , q_ q , and q_ e are plotted in Fig. 18. The neural predicted,
reconstructed, and actual values of q_ are plotted in Fig. 19. The data
points, plotted before and after 180 in Fig. 19, correspond to the
reconstructed values of the output for the training and verification
datasets, respectively. Performance of the stabilized output error
method on the training data and the verification (unused) data is poor
compared to the neural approach; therefore, a plot for the stabilized
8
.
q
7
e
RMS Values of Parameters

obtained. As mentioned earlier, , q, and e are used as the inputs to 6

the neural network while q_ serves as the output. The weights of the 5
neural network are generated using a uniform random number
generator in the range 0.1 to 0.1. It is to be noted that initialization 4
with a different set of weights does not affect the derivatives obtained 3
from the neural partial differentiation method using the (131)
17 architecture. This remains valid as long as only one neuron is used in 2
the first hidden layer. Therefore, study of the effect of weights .
qq
1 .
initialization is not provided averaging of the resulting derivatives is q
not carried out from different runs. 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
In Table 5, the values of derivatives q_ , q_ q , and q_ e obtained using Iterations
the neural partial differentiation approach are presented. For Fig. 17 Convergence of rms values of estimated pitch acceleration
comparison purposes, the results for the least-squares and the derivatives q_ e , q_ q , and q_ with iterations using 180 data points from the
stabilized output error methods are also given. The nominal values [4] X-31A aircraft actual flight data.
of the stability and control derivatives for Cm and CL are also
provided. These nominal values are used for the verification of the
results obtained using the neural partial differentiation approach as 1

q.
explained earlier. It can be observed from Table 5 that the derivatives 0
q_ and q_ q from the stabilized output error method register a high
Estimated Values of Parameters

1
.
qq
relative standard deviation. Moreover, the estimates Cm and Cmq
from the stabilized output error method also differ by twofold from 2
the nominal values. Thus, it is expected that the derivatives q_ and q_ q
3
obtained using the stabilized output error method will differ from the
nominal values, which are not known. The estimates obtained using 4
the neural partial differentiation approach seem to be reliable by 5
comparing with the least-squares and the stabilized output error
6
approaches, and by examining the reconstructed q_ using the .
derivatives from the neural partial differentiation approach as 7 q
e
explained later. 8
The computed values of the Theils inequality coefficient for the 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
training (TIC T) and verification datasets (TIC V) are presented Data points
in Tables 5 and 6. The values of Theils inequality coefficient for the Fig. 18 Estimated values of pitch acceleration derivatives q_ e , q_ q , and q_
neural partial differentiation approach and the least-squares approach for actual flight data of the X-31A aircraft.
14 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE
0.8
Actual
Predicted
0.6 Reconstructed
0.4
0.2
0 neural approach was also applied to the digitized flight data of the
0.2
0.4
0.6
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Data Points
Fig. 19 Plots of q_ reconstructed using estimates from neural partial
differentiation approach, actual, and neural predicted values for the X-
31A aircraft.
output error method is not presented. Moreover, the plot for the least-
squares approach coincides with the plots for the neural method, and
therefore the plot for the least-squares approach is not presented. It
can be observed from Fig 18 that small oscillations in the values of the
derivatives are present. This is the combined effect of the higher-
degree terms and the noise in inputs. Thus, the results from the actual
data also support the theoretical developments of the last section.
A numerical verification of the results obtained above (AVG) is
carried out here to ensure the reliability of the estimated derivatives.
Inserting the estimated and nominal values of the derivatives in
Eq. (55) gives hCG  0.0322, A  12.276, and q_ q  0.212. It
can be observed from Table 5 that the value of q_ q estimated using the
neural partial differentiation approach or the least-squares approach
is twice the value obtained from Eq. (55). It should be noted that the
nominal value and the least-squares estimates of Cmq differ by more
than 10 times, and the sign is reversed. Thus, the mismatch of twofold
in the estimated q_ q as computed previously is not large. The reason
for a poor estimate of q_ q is that the automatic controller tries to
minimize any change in the pitch rate suppressing the transients and
oscillatory motion due to natural damping, therefore suppressing the
information in the flight data required for estimation [4]. The estimate
of q_ e obtained using the neural network provides confidence in the
neural partial differentiation approach. In the presence of noise in
the input (motion) variables, the uncertainty in the estimates from the
least-squares approach becomes large compared to the neural partial
differentiation approach. Thus, it is concluded that the neural partial
differentiation approach yields estimates that are better than those
from the least-squares and stabilized output error approaches for
noisy data.
IV. Conclusions
Partial differentiation of a neural network output was proposed for
estimating the stability and control derivatives of an unstable aircraft
pertaining to the linear and nonlinear longitudinal dynamics. The
approach was assessed using both simulated and digitized flight data,
and the results were compared with classical methods such as the
least-squares and stabilized output error methods. It was proved
analytically that the relative standard deviations of the estimates of
the stability and control derivatives for different inputs will be same
when there is only one neuron in the first hidden layer. This was
verified through numerical simulation. It was concluded that. for a
mean square error (MSE) less than 104 at the end of training, the
estimates will be unbiased and the relative standard deviation will be
small. This was verified through numerical simulation using actual
and synthetic flight data for linear as well as nonlinear unstable
aircraft examples. Moreover, the issue of neural architecture to be
used for the estimation was discussed and it was shown that keeping
one neuron in the first hidden layer yielded a low standard deviation.
For inputs corrupted with noise, the estimates using the neural
partial differentiation approach yielded slightly biased estimates,
which were also reflected by the MSE not being less than 103 at the
end of training. The results obtained were compared with the nominal
values as well as with the results from the least-squares and stabilized
output error methods, which showed the superiority of the neural
partial differentiation approach in terms of precision and accuracy for
the parameter estimation of the unstable aircraft. Moreover, the
X-31A aircraft. The results obtained confirmed the inferences made
for the noisy data in terms of precision and accuracy of the neural
partial differentiation approach over the least-squares and stabilized
output error approaches.
Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to the reviewers and the Associate Editor
for their comments and meticulous review.
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16 SINHA, KUTTIERI, AND CHATTERJEE

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