Embedded flight vibration testing system for online flutter monitoring of UAVs

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have brought technical innovation with unique structural dynamic challenges to the aerospace sector. The increasing number of UAV applications have resulted in a large variety of structural layouts. In order to maintain the high safety standard presupposed in the aerospace field, measurement of the structural dynamic stability in flight has become even more important. However, online monitoring of aeroelastic stability has just been developed for regular vibration test equipment, such as used in ground or flight vibration testing of large aeroplanes. On board application to small scale UAVs is not feasible with this equipment. To this end an embedded flight vibration testing system based on Micro-Electro-Mechanical Sensors (MEMS) and Single Board Computers (SBCs) for real time flutter monitoring was developed. The system is based on the latest miniaturized electronic hardware and designed to be lightweight, robust and highly configurable. The software was developed in house and optimized for real time performance. State of the art system identification and machine learning techniques are used to identify and monitor modal parameters for determination of flutter stability of aircraft in flight and forecasting of the occurrence of flutter critical flight conditions.