High-altitude testing of parachutes; a low-cost methodology for parachute evaluation using consumer electronics

摘要

This paper presents a low-cost method for testing the inflation behaviour of small (< 5m) parachutes at high-altitude and high subsonic Mach numbers. A small and light drop vehicle (11.7kg) was developed and used to test a 2.55m ringslot parachute at a velocity of 210.5m/s (Mach 0.71), an altitude of 22.2km (72,800ft) and an atmospheric density of 0.056kg/m3. Sensors and cameras mass-produced for consumer electronics are used in a custom avionics package because they are small, low-cost, lightweight and low power. Acceleration, rotation rate and dynamic pressure data are recorded at 2kHz, and highspeed video at 300fps, during inflation and descent. The per-launch expendable costs (balloon, helium etc.) are of the order of several thousand pounds (GBP). This provides an extremely cost effective way of testing small parachutes for stability and performance at the design Mach number and appropriate mass ratio.