Novel wireless sensing platform for experimental mapping and validation of ship air wake

This paper presents the mechatronic design and analysis of a wireless sensing platform developed for the experimental mapping and validation of the air wakes generated by cruising naval vessels. The presented sensing system uses an RC helicopter as its carrier platform and uses the helicopter's dynamics for spatial 3D mapping of wind turbulence. In this paper, the proposed telemetry system models the dynamic response of the helicopter to pilot inputs under artificially generated wind conditions and then uses neural network based models to estimate the air wake distribution. The telemetry system uses a wireless sensor network comprising of sensors such as an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), optical trackers, and GPS to measure the dynamics of a flying RC helicopter. The system was trained and calibrated in a climate controlled indoor environment with artificially generated wind conditions. This paper focuses on both hardware and software aspects of the latest iteration of the telemetry system (version 3.0). The presented telemetry system is also tested with a modified YP676 naval training vessel in the Chesapeake Bay area, under a wide range of wind conditions and the results were compared against CFD simulations.