Position and attitude measurement of high-speed isolates for hypersonic facilities

The position and attitude measurement of high-speed isolates for hypersonic facilities plays an important role in structural design and aerodynamic analysis for the core facilities of aeronautics, astronautics, and navigation industries. One of the important high-speed isolates for hypersonic facilities is the high-speed and rolling target. In this paper, a rapid position and attitude measurement method based on binocular vision theory has been proposed for high-speed and rolling target in the dark wind tunnel environment. Firstly, by selecting and combining the proper light and markers, high-resolution images of the high-speed and rolling target are captured by two high-speed CCD cameras in the dark and complicated wind tunnel. Then, an acceleration-helix layout of markers is proposed to solve the markers hidden-phenomenon during the rolling procedure of for the elongated high-speed target in the larger space. Moreover, the high-accuracy recognition of the corresponding markers in the images is achieved on the basis of the markers layout. Then, position and attitude parameters of the high-speed and rolling target are calculated according to the recognized markers on the surface of the rolling target. Finally, simulative experiments on measuring the pose parameters of the rolling target in wind tunnel are conducted, and the experimental results indicate that the proposed measuring method is effective. Besides, an additional experiment in the laboratory verifies that the measurement accuracy can meet the measuring requirements in wind tunnel facilities. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.