Device for non-invasive Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI): hardware & software

The thesis focuses on FTI (Flight Test Instrumentation). First of all, a market survey was carried out to find the appropriate instrumentation to use (e.g. oscilloscope, sensors, etc.). Subsequently, a code in C++ was written that allowed to perform a Sensor Fusion in order to use simultaneously a camera and sensors. Two different codes for two different applications have been created: - In the first application a window has been created, using the code in C++, which displays the images taken by the camera and the time domain graphics of the information detected by the sensors (e.g. accelerations). Using the buttons in the window, the user is allowed to record the images captured by the camera and the data detected by the sensors in different time windows, and/or to terminate the program execution. An additional button allows the user to perform an FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) of the accelerations measured and saved in the last time window, in order to view the accelerations in the frequency domain. - In the second application, instead, a window was created in which to plot the time history of the angles, speeds and accelerations detected by the sensor. The aim is to follow the logic of Parameter Identification to perform a dynamic analysis of the helicopter and obtain an approximate indication of the natural frequency and damping of each dynamic mode. In the C++ code the software library OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision Library) and the sensor’s SDK (Software Development Kit) were used.