Further development of the Shake-The-Box flow measurement technique
iTech4STB
Optical flow measurement around a freely flying quadcopter using 3D Lagrangian Particle Tracking. High-resolution, time-resolved velocity and pressure fields are determined from particle trajectories reconstructed with Shake-The-Box.
In the project iTech4STB, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE), we are further developing the volumetric flow measurement technique Shake-The-Box (STB) together with the consortium leader LaVision GmbH. The aim is to significantly improve the accuracy, spatial resolution, and applicability of the method in wind tunnel experiments.
Building on our many years of development of the STB method for three-dimensional Lagrangian Particle Tracking (3D LPT), we are extending its application to unsteady flows across a range of wind tunnel models. This enables improvements in both measurement accuracy and the usability of the data for complex flow analyses.
A particular focus lies on the advancement of the measurement hardware for large-scale applications, in particular:
Sub-millimeter helium-filled soap bubbles
High-performance pulsed LED arrays
To reconstruct continuous, time-resolved 3D flow fields from particle trajectories, we employ inverse interpolation methods, known as data assimilation (DA). These are working by means of physically regularised approaches such as FlowFit and Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) in order to reliably determine velocity, gradient, and pressure fields.
The project is being carried out in close collaboration with LaVision GmbH, which has contributed parallel and complementary preliminary work in many areas related to DLR’s expertise. At the end of the project, we will conduct a joint wind tunnel measurement campaign on a generic aeroelastic Common Research Model, demonstrating and validating the developed methods in an integrated approach.
iTech4STB - Weiterentwicklung der STB Lagrangian Particle Tracking und der FlowFit Datenassimilationstechnik für die experimentelle Aerodynamik und -elastik
Term
4/2026 - 3/2029
Project Participants
DLR Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology
LaVision GmbH
Funding
Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE), Aviation Research Programme (LuFo), ref. no. 20Q2416B
