Abstracts Education

Autonomous control system with drag meaurement capaility for a wind tunnel model vehicle

by Shadeed Mahmud

In order to understand the aerodynamics of a model, wind tunnel testing is crucial and in wind tunnel testing there needs to be an accurate correlation between the environment inside the tunnel and the environment on the road. In the automotive industry, to make the test environment more realistic, a model vehicle being analyzed is now placed on a rolling road to simulate a moving ground. Inside wind tunnels as such, these models are supported by structures such as struts so that it can be held in place and a system of balance connected to these struts is used to measure the aerodynamic forces such as drag. These structures, however, interfere with wind tunnel results and it is standard practice to correct wind tunnel results for a model with and without presence of support structures. In order to make the wind tunnel test environment more realistic and results more accurate thus enabling us to understand the complete aerodynamics of a model, an advanced alternative is proposed and researched in this project. This project is about the development of an autonomous control system that can maintain a model vehicle's position inside a wind tunnel over a moving ground with high degree of accuracy and measure the drag the vehicle is experiencing. This thesis reviews existing technology in the field of wind tunnel testing and autonomous driving and discusses the development of an advanced mathematical algorithm for the aimed control system.