2.3 - Developing a Novel Contactless Sensor for Helicopter Rotor State Measurements

Event
etc2016 - 36. European Telemetry and Test Conference
2016-05-10 - 2016-05-12
Nürnberg, Germany
Chapter
2. Sensors & AIM2016
Author(s)
P. Cordisco, E. Vigoni - Vicoter, Calolziocorte (Italy), R. Liu, E. Zappa - Politecnico di Milano, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Milano (Italy), M. Redaelli, L. Riviello - Finmeccanica Helicopter Division, Varese (Italy), A. Rolando, F. Rossi, L. Trainelli - Politecnico di Milano, Department of Aerospace Science and Engineering, Milano (Italy)
Pages
69 - 77
DOI
10.5162/etc2016/2.3
ISBN
978-3-9816876-2-0
Price
free

Abstract

The present contribution concerns the development of an innovative measurement system for rotorcraft applications. This system aims at the real-time acquisition of the motion of a rotor blade in flight, for applications in emitted noise prediction and monitoring, and in rotor state feedback control augmentation. A structured approach to the system design, implementation and testing has been pursued starting from a survey of applicable technologies. Contactless solutions were targeted, in view of maximum compatibility with a wide class of vehicles. A first development phase saw the selection of three concepts, all conceived to be mounted on the rotor head and pointing the blade root area, based either on 2-D laser transducers or on vision-based sensors. These were implemented in full scale and laboratory tested to choose the most promising for definitive development. The final solution, a stereoscopic vision-based measurement system, was brought to maturity through further development and laboratory testing, up to fully integration on board a prototype helicopter for ground and flight testing. We detail the various stages in this process, motivating the choices made and illustrating the results in terms of measurement accuracy.

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