A Robust and Cost-Effective Pressure Measurement System for Advanced Unsteady Aerodynamic Applications

Robust and accurate measurement of unsteady surface pressure distribution is important for the characterization, modeling, prediction, and control of unsteady aerodynamics in today’s agile aircraft systems. Time-resolved unsteady pressure measurements at a large number of ports with high accuracy and high reliability during wind tunnel and flight test applications have been historically a challenging issue for instrumentation engineers.  Resono Pressure Systems has developed technology to correct for the tubing distortion and enable bandwidth increases over 1000Hz for remotely measured pressure signals acquired using pressure scanners.  Primarily developed for low-speed wind tunnel testing applications, the methodology can be extended to more challenging test conditions relevant to U.S. Air Force applications. This Phase II project aims to develop a turnkey system that enables U.S. Air Force end-users to use pressure scanners in unsteady pressure measurement applications.