Modular, Intelligent Flight Test Instrumentation for DLR's New Ultralight Coaxial Research Helicopter

Abstract

The newest addition to DLR's fleet of research aircraft is the ultralight helicopter CoAX 2D by German manufacturer edm aerotec GmbH. This helicopter type is characterized by its rotor system, consisting of two identical, coaxially arranged two-blade rotors. It is equipped with a flight test system that records measurements in both the non-rotating system (e.g., orientation, position, and control forces) and the rotating systems (e.g., mast and blade loads). The first project making use of the new helicopter is named Modular, Intelligent Data Acquisition and Processing, a collaboration between Safran Data Systems GmbH, Vectoflow GmbH, edm aerotech GmbH and the German Aerospace Center. Within this project, the existing flight test system was expanded by a modular data recorder equipped with the newly developed onboard processing module, which is based on the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 embedded computing module. Furthermore, additional lightweight, 3D-printed multi-hole probes were installed on the stabilizers. Another air data probe was installed on a nose boom to measure the flow field in front of the helicopter. The paper begins with the description of the new research helicopter and the research project. It continues with the characteristics of the helicopter and its rotor system, before describing the developed hardware (recorder, processing module, sensors) and software (application programming interface, data processing) in detail. It concludes with an outlook to the applications, the aerodynamic analysis, the planned flight test campaigns, and future projects going to make use of the new research helicopter.