SonicSonde: Instrumentation for a Tethered Atmospheric Sensor Suite System, Year 2 (SonicSonde)

Completed TRL 4 (started at 3, targeting 4)

Description

Controlled flight of highly flexible aircraft is challenging because of the coupled nature of the vehicle dynamics. Therefore, the control systems must be multi-objective and control both the rigid body dynamics and structural dynamics. Traditional implementation of filters degrades control system margins and vehicle performance, and can be impractical to implement depending on the vehicle structural dynamics. Controlling the vehicle structural dynamics is challenging because of the high-rate sensor feedback and controller actuation required, coupled nature of the vehicle rigid body and structural dynamics, and limited margins for failures due to explosive instabilities such as flutter. Fiber Optic Shape Sensing (FOSS) is a distributed sensor system, that provides vehicle strain and displacement measurements throughout the entire fiber. Doppler FOSS is an advancement to the current FOSS system that also provides distributed velocity information. Distributed velocity information can enable new control law designs and increase their robustness to enable high performance controlled flight of highly flexible vehicles.
Validating Doppler FOSS in a ground test on a flight hardware such as the X-56A wing will be a critical step towards flying Doppler FOSS onboard to demonstrate the many benefits of this technology in flight.

Benefits

Current tethered instrumentation on the market fails to overcome the recurrent problems of functionality, capability, and resolution due to its rudimentary design, thus forcing the use of multiple weather devices to collectively serve as the current means for capturing data specific to boundary-layer research. This instrumentation practice is makeshift, limiting, costly, and in most cases impractical due to the frequent repetition of measurement and data resolution demanded by advancing research topics. The objective for this proposal is to not only combat these problems through development of an advanced, versatile, and lightweight sensor suite but to bring forth a modernized instrument that allows for progressive research in the field.

Details

Technology area	Sensors and Instruments
Program	Center Innovation Fund: AFRC CIF (AFRC CIF)
Lead organization	Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA
Start date	2020-10-01
End date	2021-09-30

Project contacts

Listed on TechPort itself — the most direct way to ask about this specific project.

Kimberly A Bestul — kimberly.a.bestul@nasa.gov

How to get involved

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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