Publications Details

Quantification of margins and uncertainties study of deceleration environment sensors for a ribbon parachute

Murray, Jonathan M.; Wolfe, Walter P.

A study has been performed to quantify the uncertain performance of an environment sensing safety system which senses the unique payload trajectory environment created during parachute deployment. Models for the underlying sources of uncertainty, specifically the parachute inflation uncertainty and the uncertainty in performance of the mechanical switch sensors, have been identified and validated. DAKOTA, a Sandia-developed software package for uncertainty quantification, has been used to perform a probabalistic study of system performance, accounting for sources of uncertainty in the parachute inflation process and in the environment sensing process. This study has been performed across the payload release envelope with margins and uncertainties quantified for a critical sytem performance requirement. © 2011 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.