Accuracy Analysis of Wind Estimation for Paramotors Using Only a Smartphone

Estimating wind speed and direction is a very important requirement in the sports aviation community, especially for paramotors (also known as powered paragliders), paragliders and hang gliders. These airplanes are mostly not instrumented; however, most pilots nowadays are in possession of a smartphone during flight. Software algorithms do exist to estimate the wind conditions, but the accuracy of these algorithms have not been verified. The authors, who are sports paramotor and paraglider pilots, have proposed a framework to collect data, estimate the wind conditions and perform error analysis. Data is collected through a series of flight tests, and the framework is applied to determine the wind conditions. Error analyses are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.