AIM - an introduction to the project

Abstract

The European Specific Targeted Research Project (STReP) AIM – Advanced In-Flight Measurement Techniques was launched on November 1, 2006. This project intends to make advanced, non-intrusive measurement techniques applicable for time and cost effective industrial flight testing as well as in-flight testing for research. In the AIM consortium, ten Partners from aircraft industries, airport services and research organisations coming from 7 countries are working closely together. These partners are: Piaggio Aero Industries (I), Eurocopter France (F), Eurocopter Deutschland (D), Airbus France (F), DLR (D), ONERA (F), NLR (NL), EVEKTOR (CZ); Flughafen Braunschweig Wolfsburg GmbH (D), Cranfield University (GB), MPEI-Technical University (RUS). AIM is coordinated by DLR in Göttingen, where Mr. Fritz Boden functions as the coordinator of this 3.6 million € STReP. The purpose of the 3-year AIM program is to further develop measurement techniques in such a way that they can be routinely applied to flight tests, hence providing comprehensive planar information on various important parameters such as wing and propeller deformation, thermal loads on the structures of helicopters, the surface pressure distribution on a wing, density gradients of strong vortices generated by airplanes and helicopters and velocity flow fields near airplanes and helicopters.