Airborne Measurement – Advanced Instrument Development Methods and Insight

Abstract

Airborne measurement is required in many fields of aerospace, ranging from aircraft development and flight test, to atmospheric sciences. It involves the use of aircraft mounted instruments to measure quantities ranging from simple parameters such as pressure and airspeed, to more complex quantities such as atmospheric aerosols and solids. Although well-established traditional methods are available to design instruments in the airborne environment, the application of new advanced methods and sensors to refine instrument design, has seen slow adoption by most of these fields. The following paper presents examples of new approaches, which are used to refine a number of airborne instruments, including the measurement of sideslip angle and angle of attack using traditional instruments and strain and pressure using advanced fibre optic sensors. An example of the application of these methods to aerosol measurement is also discussed. In most cases, it is concluded instruments can be readily and quickly refined using these new techniques, including computational fluid dynamics. New sensors also offer potential improvements in the measurement of many airborne measurands.