Stress-deflection angle measurement of the aircraft wings using a biaxial inclination angle sensor

The flight pose of an aircraft is affected seriously by the stress-deflection angles of aileron and tail fin. Traditional manual measurement suffers from various error sources. Here, we propose a novel high precision measuring method. A biaxial inclination angle sensor is used to calculate the unit-normal-vector of the measuring plane. Levelling is the first and necessary step to make zero for X and Y axes. Those values of the two axes are eliminated by the space coordinate transformation between rotation shaft and rotary surface, meanwhile, the changing value of Z axis is utilized to figure out the space stress-deflection angle. The proof-of-concept experiments verify that the improved automation and precision can be achieved by the proposed technique. Furthermore, the measurement is not constrained by the shape of the curved surface of the object. Those advantages make the method suitable in space deflection angle measurement of giant space rotation structure, especially in aerospace field.