Detection of the boundary-layer separation point based on the flexible sensor arrays

Microelectromechanical systems plays an important role for studying gaseous or liquid fluid flows experimentally due to the dimensions of the device on the μm-scale. For aerodynamic applications, the detection of the location of the separation point of the boundary layer is very important, which is used for active flow control and smart skin adaptive control system. This paper presents the design and integration methods of a flexible polymide substrate micro thermal sensor array, sensor array driver circuit, dynamic data acquisition circuit, and criterion algorithm of the boundary layer separation point. The above algorithms were used to analyze the NACA0012 wind tunnel test data at flow conditions of the velocity 40 m/s and AOA 16°. The result demonstrated the above system can fulfill the dynamic and real-time of the adaptive control system.