APPLICATION OF A NEW LARGE FORCE MEASUREMENT DEVICE FOR SATELLITE TESTING

摘要

ESA's ESTEC Test Centre uses since 1991 a Force Measurement Device (FMD) for the measurement of dynamic mechanical interface forces and moments during satellite dynamic tests.A new much larger FMD system has been developed in 2005 and successfully applied in satellite tests. The system includes a digital real time signal processing unit with 72 force input channels, corresponding to 24 tri-axial force sensors or 72 mono axial force sensors. The number of input channels can be extended to 144. The set-up of the FMD is done via a standard PC interface. The user enters for each force sensor the location and the measurement direction in the reference coordinate system. Based on the geometrical information and the maximum forces and moments expected, the PC calculates the optimum range settings for the charge-amplifiers and the corresponding matrix with weighting factors which allows performing a fast calculation of the six output forces and moments from the 72 input forces. The paper will discuss the design of new facility, the acceptance and the results achieved in first tests.