Angle of Attack testing

This Easter I spent driving around the neighbourhood testing the Angle of Attack unit with the pitot mounted on the bull-bar of my car.

The tests generally confirmed that the basic principles and the methods are correct and the angle of attack can be measured this way (see the AoA page).

In my test setup I didn’t have external static port, so the static pressure was measured inside the car. So the measurements were very different depending on whether the windows were closed or opened. Airflow inside the car has also affected the static pressure and made the AoA reading a bit jumpy.

Anyway. the good news is that the general concept is working and now it is a matter of testing the unit in-flight and fine-tuning the calibration parameters.

One more observation:

• The Zero reading (no pressure difference) of the MPXV7002 sensors changes a bit depending on the position of the sensor in space. For example turning the unit from a flat position up side down causes change in the reading by 0.02V. This introduces quite a bit of noise in the readings at low speed due to vibration of the sensor.