Kinematic Telemetry from Small-Scale Wind Tunnel Models

Abstract

The development, assembly, calibration, and testing of a kinematic telemetry technique of determining the trajectory of a small model in free motion in a wind tunnel is described. Instead of measuring model displacement from a film record of the trajectory, accelerations of the model in the conventional six degrees of freedom were determined through the use of accelerometers and solid-state telemetry. Four models of a 1/15-scale fuel tank were each equipped with six linear accelerometers and one velocity sensor, analog-to-digital converters, and an eight-channel transmitter, all powered by a lithium battery pack.The models were released at transonic conditions in the wind tunnel. Model acceleration data were transmitted to a receiver and decoder outside the tunnel. The decoded digital data were stored on a personal computer equipped with a 32-bit data acquisition card and custom software. Correlation of accelerometer-based trajectories with conventional photography-based trajectories was good to excellent.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 1995
Accession Number
ADA294442

Entities

People

  • E. J. Marquart
  • F. J. Gamble
  • G. P. Walker
  • K. I. Davis
  • R. E. Dix

Organizations

  • Arnold Engineering Development Complex

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Cameras
  • Computers
  • Converters
  • Data Acquisition
  • Digital Data
  • Fuel Tanks
  • Instrumentation
  • Measurement
  • Personal Computers
  • Photographs
  • Telemetry
  • Test Facilities
  • Trajectories
  • Wind Tunnels

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerodynamics/Aeronautics.
  • Computer Science/Computer Engineering/Data Science/Digital Signal Processing.
  • Fluid Dynamics.