Flight testing

Flight test encompasses a broad range of aerospace related activities. DEWESoft is used both inside aircraft to collect data locally, as well as on the ground in large scale facilities where data is collected, or even a van instrumented with a communications array and state of the art recording equipment.

You will find us in all of these locations, often arranged in a network and remote control topology due to the sheer number of channels, and the need to synchronize the data from all of them. We can do this via IRIG, or even by GPS using our proprietary GPS-CLOCK for precise global time sync of any number of data acquisition systems.

Application reports

Helicopter flight test	Vibration and strain measurement system Helicopter institute, China	View
Application The application is to measure displacement, strain and vibration on the helicopters. Systems need to be highly flexible, that they can be used in lower channel application, but can be also combined to achieve higher channel count. Measurement challenge The requirement from the customer is to have 48 channels of strain, 16 channels vibration and 16 voltage channels. On the other side customer needs to have three independent 32 chanel system. The high flexibility of Dewetron PCI-BOOK solution offers this. Test hardware Test hardware

Engine and component testing

Dewesoft is in use testing jet and turboprop engines used in aircraft, spacecraft, and basically anything that flies. From the Predator drone to the space shuttle, and everything in between, including experimental engine technologies under development right now. The high quality of analog data combined with vast amount of mathematic analysis proves to be the key factor.

Already automotive industry is very strict on component testing, but aerospace industry is even more demanding. The components and system must undertake severe tests before they are built in the vehicles.

Application reports

Control module testing	Production test of fuel flow module Goodrich, United Kingdom	View
Application Goodrich is a very well know producer of fuel control systems. These systems are thoroughly tested for performance in a very demanding combination of vibration, temperature and even fire. Dewesoft is used to acquire data from the test stands. Measurement challenge The measurement consists of channels for fuel flow, pressure and temperature. It also monitors control signals and mechanics. The main decision for Dewesoft is since it is extremely easy to use by any operator and doesn't need to be tailored for each test.
Testing emergency slides	Production and testing of emergency slides for all kinds of aircrafts Goodrich, USA	View
Application Goodrich division makes the huge slides and rafts that deploy from aircraft when they land in the water or other emergency situations. They need to test the emergency slides very carefully and prove that they work every time according to standards. They need to measure and prove how fast they inflate along with other important parameters. Measurement challenge The customer has first looked at o'scopes, but they are weak in signal conditioning, and have only a few channels (they need at least 12 pressures). They also looked at Nicolet/LDS/HBM, but found the software difficult to use, and there was no synced video recording. They looked at iOtech, but the signal conditioning was poor, and their software is DASYLab, or a very weak generic package. Finally they were recommended to DEWETRON hardware and DEWESoft by their sister power division in Ohio, who have $750,000 worth of our systems there for production test, and asked us for a demonstration. Test setup included following sensors: 3 pressure sensors, 1 load cell, 1 anemometer, 3 thermocouples and DEWE-CAM-01. A380 emergency slide testing DEWESoft in action DEWESoft in action DEWESoft in action Anemometer is used to measure wind speed.

Wind tunnel testing

Dewesoft is used with all major types of wind tunnels, from subsonic through trans, super, and even hypersonic (5 x the speed of sound). Our ability to record video AND data at the same time are incredibly useful in these important tests, as is the wide range of physical measurement sensors and signals that the system can accept.

PCM telemetry

Digital telemetry interface is one of the many add-ons for Dewesoft. We support PCM Tarsus card from Ulyssix adding great features of acquiring and decoding data from this card. Not only that we can decode several thousand channels from this interface, we also support software async streams and FFI decoding. The data is again perfectly synchronized with the use of IRIG to the analog data and video streams.

Application reports

PCM telemetry	Space shuttle flight program PCM telemetry NASA, The Kennedy Space Center, USA	View
Application The Kennedy Space Center in Florida is the busiest launch site in the world, with not only the Space Shuttle launches and landings, but also Delta and other rockets. NASA placed two large contracts to deliver 25 Dewetron measurement instruments and a development contract for digital telemetry interfaces. Dewesoft is a perfect platform to add such a complex devices with several thousand measurement channels. Measurement challenge The 25 DEWE-901's where quickly installed in the 19'' racks at NASA. This machine is perfectly designed for rack mounting, with one or two removable data drives on the front panel, and even the C-drive is removable on the rear panel. The DEWE-901 mounts on slides for easy access when needed. Software part was developed in close operation with the engineers at LCC. Dewesoft gained a lot not only adding the PCM telemetry option for decoding main main and embedded streams, but also in term of data visualization. At this moment software is qualified for regular flight tests and used in every day's business. Even though twenty five units are installed, each of them can acquire and process as much data as hundred of old paper recorders, which were totally replaced by new instruments. This gives the engineers much greater power (and workload) for data processing. Additional benefit for the engineers is Dewesoft NET, where they can setup and operate all recorders from a single client machine or/and they can also ship the data to virtually unlimited number of view clients, providing the data to all different departments. The Kennedy Space center Shuttle ready for launch Our engineers at NASA Space shuttle launched Recording equipment with DEWESoft Recording equipment with DEWESoft Recording equipment with DEWESoft NASA officials looking at DEWESoft during space shuttle launch

Performance testing

Vehicles need to be tested for performance as in any other industry. As we are checking the highest speed and acceleration for the cars we buy, the aircrafts or military vehicles are checked for performance. With the wide ability of inputs, adding GPS and video, DEWESoft is a nice tool for this.

Application reports

Long term tank testing	Project for testing Leopard-2 A6 tanks Royal Dutch Army, Netherlands	View
Application Royal Dutch army wanted to test their tanks for performance over longer period of time. The test lasted for seven weeks and in this time, they needed to have a system being able to log the temperature data with low speed and acquiring high speed strain channels. Measurement challenge There are very few systems in the world which can do this combination of measurements. The system can be remotely controlled and is therefore very well suited for this application. When the test was finished, customer started to use the system in many totally different areas, which proves its flexibility. Tank testing Tank testing
Vehicle and ballistic tests	Vehicle and ballistic tests DGA ETBS(French army), France	View
Application Formula 1 cars are designed for performance. The vehicle telemetry acquires the data on different test tracks all over the world. These data sets are then replayed on so called seven pole test rig, which can simulate the real driving conditions to set up new cars for these conditions. Measurement challenge Formula 1 cars are designed for performance. The vehicle telemetry acquires the data on different test tracks all over the world. These data sets are then replayed on so called seven pole test rig, which can simulate the real driving conditions to set up new cars for these conditions. F1 test car Test setup

Structural testing

Splendid Dewetron front-end amplifiers and acquisition devices provides the perfect base for data acquisition of vibration, shock and strain data. With DEWESoft mathematical modules for PSD, FRF, torsional vibration, order tracking and multichannel function generator the system is like a Swiss knife for dynamic signal analysis. From four channels to perform simple tests to thousands of channels measuring the dynamic behavior of satellites DEWESoft offers the solution.

Application reports

Frequency response testing	Frequency response testing on a space satellite body IABG, Germany	View
Application IABG is one of the leading institute in Germany for aerospace and automotive testing. They required to replace their old data acquisition system with thousand channels flexible data acquisition solution to measure frequency response function on sine swept frequency response test as well as other tests. Measurement challenge One thousand channel system is a challenge even without any special application behind it. The usage of the system in such complex tests adds the spice. IABG is using the stacks of 256 channels systems as one and a separate DEWESoft function generator to drive the shakers. They change the frequency in 0.1 mHz steps, amplitude and phase angles on the fly without a glitch in the signals. All the channels are measuring and calculating the response functions on the fly and giving the data to the control unit, animating the structure in real time. The system has been successfully used for testing the AMS02 satellite, one of the the last payload to be launched before the Space shuttle retires. The flexibility of the system to be adapted to this application as well as the wealth of standard functions was the key to succeed in this application. Test setup DEWESoft and IABG engineers Satellite used for structural test Test setup Satellite used for structural test

Power analysis

DEWESoft is used for testing all aspects of air, sea and spacecraft. And one of the most important system is the POWER itself. On larger vessels this is typically 400 Hz or even 800 Hz three-phase AC power. With POWER software option, your system is a complete 3 phase analyzer capable of handling any base frequency within the network, up to 800 Hz and even beyond. These are powerful systems capable of calculating not just watts and vars, but the entire gamut of power quality values, including distortion, active, reactive, apparent power, THD, phase, and literally hundreds of parameters from each 3-phase system.

The second part is the software, which breathes life into the hardware. The POWER option for DEWESoft adds a precision PLL that tracks the base frequency of the power with 0.001 Hz precision (yes, that's one milliHertz) in order to make the RMS and power calculations with the same exact number of samples per period, regardless of the base frequency. Even variable frequency power networks are no problem for us. You simply can't do real power measurements without constantly monitoring and adjusting the effective sample rate based on the base frequency.

Recorder stacks

Even though we support vast amount of channels with one device, this is often not enough for complex vehicles like the Space Shuttle. Therefore we can use DEWESoft NET to connect several recorders to act like one, adding together a tremendous amount of power for data acquisition and analysis. All the recorders can be operated from a single machine, which means setting up the system as well as starting and stopping them.

The data can be than observed by any number of view clients.

Explosion and ammunition testing

DEWESoft transient recording solutions are widely used all over the world for explosion and ammunition testing. With hundreds of millions samples per second the systems are able to capture any transient event. The systems can be triggered externally with a digital line or on any analog channel. The analog cards can be operated at different speeds with different pre and post time, providing slower data for the longer time and high speed acquisition for the event itself.

Application reports

Ballistic recording	Ballistic recording at Woomera rocket range Metromatics, Australia	View
Application When you want to make a big boom, Australia is the right place to be. Woomera rocket range covers 23000 km2 of Australian desert. The purpose of this test is to see the effect of firing five tons of explosives to the surrounding buildings. Measurement challenge Well, with this kind of tests, there are few obvious challenges: you don't want to be near when it happens, you don't want to repeat the test and since the event doesn't last for very long, acquisition rate must be high. The data is acquired with 32 ICP sensors, the systems were located in the bunker buried two meter below ground one kilometer away and the test operators were located additional kilometer away, connected to the systems with remote control observing the process of acquisition. After the big blast, the result was eight meters big hole with 28 meters in diameter and a very nice data set. And the houses? See for yourself. TNT explosion DAQ hardware Transient rec. setup Monitoring setup Before explosion After explosion Crater after explosion DEWESoft in action DEWESoft in action