INFLIGHT experiment: determination of mass moment of inertia

A pendulum test to determine of the mass moments of inertia for a Remos GX aircraft was performed beginning of February 2019 by IBK-Innovation with support from the project partners messWERK and IFF at the hangar of Aerodata AG in Braunschweig, Germany.

The INFLIGHT project investigates the use of an onboard LiDAR in a small Remos GX aircraft, targeting at gust loads alleviation. To enable the control law design for gust load alleviation, a model of the aircraft is to be set up with aerodynamics derived from flight tests and mass data derived from aircraft weighting and from a pendulum test.

Measurements were taken with the internal inertia measurement unit (IMU) equipped in the test aircraft and an external IMU attached to the crane hook. The dynamic motion of the aircraft was recorded in terms of the accelerations, rotational velocities, and attitude angles. Additionally, visual markers where installed to record the absolute position of the aircraft with video cameras.

First results are promising in terms of accuracy and repeatability.