Recalibration of a stereoscopic camera system for in-flight wing deformation measurements

A decalibration of a stereoscopic camera system caused by slight movements of the cameras can influence the accuracy of the measured 3D positions significantly. Especially for large scale in-flight applications this is difficult to avoid, e.g. due to the high loads and the vibration level occurring during dynamic flight manoeuvres. Thus a practicable approach for a correction of the results by a recalibration of the camera system is necessary. The image pattern correlation technique (IPCT) delivers large area surface results which enables the assessment of its triangulation error in detail as a measure for the quality of the results. The objective of the presented recalibration is a minimisation of the overall triangulation error by a correction of the external camera parameters. The criteria to assess the reliability of the 3D-surface results and the deformation results derived from are described as well as the limitations of the method. A wing deformation measurement on a VUT100 Cobra aeroplane by means of stereoscopic IPCT was used as a test case to demonstrate the applicability of the recalibration method on real flight test data.