Free-flight testing
One of the key advantages of testing drones in a WindShape facility is that it enables free-flight testing in real life conditions. Our windshaper can recreate any steady or time-variable wind. The drone, while in free flight in the test facility, experiences a similar situation as if it were actually flying.
The test environment also features a motion tracking camera system that can record the behavior of the drone during the test in a simple and non-intrusive manner. In order to offer the most immersive test experience for the drone, a GNSS (GPS, Galileo, …) emulator can be coupled to the windshaper and fool the drone into thinking that it is actually flying forward and that the wind it perceives is just the apparent wind resulting from its forward motion in still air.
Depending on the needs, the test setup can include:
- windshapers 1.5m x 0.75m (6×3 modules or 162 wind pixels) – up to 16m/s
- Flow straightener to reduce undesired turbulence (around 1% TI) when needed
- 4x Optitrack Prime 17W
- 1000fps optical camera (SONY RX100 MKVII) to visualize short events
- …
If you think such a service could be adapted to your ongoing development, or if you have any other question regarding the setup, feel free to contact us.
Keywords
- Wind speed up to 16m/s
- 1.5×0.75x3m (w x h x d) test volume
- Motion tracking cameras
- Optical camera
- GNSS emulator
- Flow sensors
- Flow visualization (smoke)
Test facility
Rue de Bourgogne 25
1203 Geneva
Switzerland
Phone: +41 22 340 74 74