We found by luck this blog, Erik exchanged some words on the socials with the author Curtis Olson. It’s excellent stuff. If you want to see serious hardware and software at work this the right (and almost unique) place to go.
Details are not filtered in any way, it’s lovely to browse through the media. As an example, I report to you the picture one of the two alfa/beta vanes that are mounted on an experimental airplane by Olson. Original comment by Olson is ” …Mass properties and moments of inertia are being carefully recorded prior to flight in the lab. Individual control surface deflections will also be recorded with potentiometers mounted in each hinge. In addition, we will be recording imu, gps, pilot inputs, and attitude estimates with a 15-state kalman filter…” . I stress on this point, Olson is using a math model for the plane so it is possible to use advanced control techniques too. It is not to be confused with the easier approach that leads to the use of PID controllers tuned by trial and error.
