Laboratory Development

The Centre for Aerospace Systems Design & Engineering when set up in 1998 needed strong support from a laboratory infrastructure. Most of the facilities mentioned below are set up as part of this initiative.


Development of On-board Computer & Actuators in Loop Simulator for Mini Aerial Vehicles.

CASDE has been developing mini-aerial vehicle for past 3 years. One vehicle was instrumented, another carried a video camera and third was solar powered. A new effort in mini-aerial vehicles is to have a autonomous vehicle. It is felt that the Guidance & Control law for this will need to be tested on ground by actually having the on-board micro-controller in loop. Also in simulation loop will be the actuators. Professor Prasanna Gandhi of Mechanical Engineering will play a major role in this effort through a Dual Degree Student project. Dr. Hemendra Arya and Mr. Amitay Isaacs from CASDE are also main players. A group of 3 BTech students group is working on this during this summer. When ready the facility will be ideal to try out Guidance & Control strategies proposed for the mini-aerial vehicles.
A proposal to seek funding for this activity from AR&DB with Professor P Gandhi and Dr. Hemendra Arya as investigators is under preparation.

Development of Instrumented Radio Controlled Aircraft for Flight Mechanics and Flight Control Experimentation.

One aircraft model carrying a data logger that can measure 8 parameters (V, h, Alpha, Delta_elevator, Q, nx, ny, nz) is presently flying. Dr. Hemendra Arya is a driving force in this activity. (A picture of the vehicle and data for a vertical loop are shown) For more information . . .

Development of a laboratory demonstrator for Strapdown Inertial Navigation System using MEMS sensors.

This simple set up can record 3 axis accelerations and angular rates and should be able to reconstruct the 3D trajectory of arbitrary motion for small duration. This is presently under development and requires lot more refinements. Dr. Hemendra Arya is a driving force in this activity.

Rapid Prototyping as a route to making models for wind tunnel testing.

The parametric definition of an aircraft arising out of Conceptual Studies is quickly converted to a digital prototype and then downloaded to a rapid prototyping facility to build 3-D Model. 3D aircraft model (15 cm span) has already been built this way. This activity is coordinated by me and complete technical contribution is by Professor GR Shevare and his team from CFD Laboratory. Acknowledgements are also due to Professor Bapat, Industrial Design Centre for generous help and support with the Rapid Prototyping machine.
There is a plan to build aircraft models of 25 to 30 cm span that can be mounted on a wind tunnel balance. This activity is currently underway with help from Professor KP Karunakaran (Mechanical Engg.) along with Professor Shevare's group. This is part of rapid concept evaluation idea, where a physical model is built within a short time of parametric definition of an aircraft thrown up by MDO study. This model can then be tested in the tunnel and the data generated used for simulation and assessment of the concept. For more information . . .

Wing Rock Demonstrator

A 2 Axis motion platform that is driven by a PC to position an aircraft model in pitch & roll. Aircraft dynamics runs off the PC and is used to position the model for visual effect. The aircraft position is sensed using potentiometers and fed back to the PC. The feed back can be used for implementing control strategies. A 486 PC along with PCL208 DA/AD card is used. The motion platform is driven by low cost servos used by hobbyists. Wing rock is a well studied non-linear flight dynamic, limit cycle phenomena. Dr. Hemendra Arya is the driving force in this activity.



6-Component Wind Tunnel Balance

This balance has been recenly made to order to suit specific requirement of testing small models in low speed wind tunnel. The balance comes with a Alpha-Beta positioning sector. 6-component data will be logged onto a PC based Data Acquisition System. The positioning is to be done manually but has provision to upgrade to PC based positioning when funds become available. Professor SD Sharma has been associated with this activity. F or more information . . .
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