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Flush Air Data Sensing System


Affiliations
1 Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram 695 022, India
2 Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Bengaluru 560 008, India
 

Flush air data sensing system (FADS) forms a mission-critical subsystem in re-entry vehicles. It makes use of surface pressure measurements from the nose cap of the vehicle for deriving air data parameters such as angle of attack, angle of sideslip, Mach number, etc. of the vehicle. These parameters are used by the flight control and guidance systems, and also assist in the overall mission management. The overall system engineering of FADS, including selection of pressure transducers, tubing size, port geometry, FADS algorithm and associated processing electronics along with the integration scheme is addressed in this article. Details of the qualification tests carried out in wind tunnel for end-to-end verification of the entire FADS system are covered in brief. Majority of the tests were carried out in a low-speed wind tunnel at a wind speed of 65 m/s (Mach number 0.2). The flight performance of FADS is also discussed in this article.

Keywords

Angle of Attack, Flushed Air Data System, Hypersonic Flight Vehicles, Subsonic, Wind Tunnel.
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  • Flush Air Data Sensing System

Abstract Views: 471  |  PDF Views: 147

Authors

N. Shyam Mohan
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram 695 022, India
M. Jayakumar
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram 695 022, India
T. Sivamurugan
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram 695 022, India
K. C. Finitha
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram 695 022, India
S. B. Vidya
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram 695 022, India
Jayanta Dhoaya
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram 695 022, India
N. Remesh
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram 695 022, India
M. Prasath
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram 695 022, India
Shashi Krishna
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram 695 022, India
Aisha Sidhique
Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Bengaluru 560 008, India

Abstract


Flush air data sensing system (FADS) forms a mission-critical subsystem in re-entry vehicles. It makes use of surface pressure measurements from the nose cap of the vehicle for deriving air data parameters such as angle of attack, angle of sideslip, Mach number, etc. of the vehicle. These parameters are used by the flight control and guidance systems, and also assist in the overall mission management. The overall system engineering of FADS, including selection of pressure transducers, tubing size, port geometry, FADS algorithm and associated processing electronics along with the integration scheme is addressed in this article. Details of the qualification tests carried out in wind tunnel for end-to-end verification of the entire FADS system are covered in brief. Majority of the tests were carried out in a low-speed wind tunnel at a wind speed of 65 m/s (Mach number 0.2). The flight performance of FADS is also discussed in this article.

Keywords


Angle of Attack, Flushed Air Data System, Hypersonic Flight Vehicles, Subsonic, Wind Tunnel.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv114%2Fi01%2F68-73