Developing LabVIEW Data Acquisition and Interface for Rotor Test Rig Operation

Institute

Lehrstuhl für Hubschraubertechnologie (TUM-ED)

Type

Student Job /

Content

experimental / constructive /  

Description

The MERIT test rig is a whirl tower featuring an 85kW motor and constant-rpm control, capable of monitoring rotor blade behaviour in a variety of extreme flight conditions, most notably deep dynamic stall in a two-blade configuration. The measurement equipment includes, but is not limited to, force gauges for thrust, torque and azimuth encoder measurements, hall sensors for pitch measurements, and strain gauges for blade root bending moments or pitch link forces. More sensors are continuously being added to the system, e.g. accelerometers for eigenfrequency excitation recognition. All of these sensors are used for real-time monitoring of operation, hence must be graphed in real time, and is also used for post-processed analysis of performance parameters, hence must be saved reliably. Currently two instances of the DAQ software, LabVIEW are run in parallel: one for the sensors in the rotating system (hall sensors, strain gauges on blades) and one for those in the non-rotating system (force gauges, torque, encoder). While this is functional it comes associated with its own problems, notably synchronisation and performance issues, since each of the DAQ systems operate at different sampling rates, coordinated via a global azimuth trigger TTL signal.

A far more elegant solution would be to have both DAQ systems operated by a single LabVIEW VI – this is the objective of the proposed HiWi work, to combine the two existing VIs into one, solving synchronisation or performance issues along the way.

There are other additional quality-of-life improvements that could be made, e.g. overlaying the azimuth angle over the pitch angle to directly correlate them in real time.

One possible extension of this would be to integrate filters that remove the EM noise out of the signal, for which some preliminary work has been done.

Requirements

- LabVIEW is not a user-friendly software to use. Ideally you would have previous experience working with the software, and would be familiar with common functions. If not, you may need to be prepared to spend a lot of time working your way into understanding functionality and workflow.

- Ideally you have some experience working with DAQ systems / the sensors and equipment mentioned above

- Approx. 40 hours with flexibility for extension if needed

Possible start

sofort

Contact

Matti Mitropoulos
Room: MW2701
matti.mitropoulostum.de

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