Research and Application of Heavy-Equipment Parachute Rope Tension Sensor

Abstract

Heavy-equipment airdrops are mainly used to deliver relief supplies and heavy weapons. Given the heavy weight of the goods, the tension of the extraction and brake ropes of the parachute significantly affects the safety of the aircraft. On the basis of the measurement and installation characteristics of the parachute rope, this study designed the structure of a nondestructive pressure-type parachute rope tension sensor and set the location of the strain gauge patch using the ANSYS simulation software to obtain a high sensor sensitivity. The temperature error of the tension sensor is compensated, and the precision is improved using the LSSVM-PSO (Least Squares Support Vector Machine-Particle Swarm Optimization) algorithm. The developed tension sensor is applied to the extraction parachute test system to measure the traction of 2 and 8 m2 parachutes. Test results show that the maximum weight of the platform these two parachutes can draw and the effect of parachute opening can be calculated.