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Aerospace Engineering

Air Force Institute of Technology

Theses and Dissertations

Target acquisition

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Waypoint Generation Based On Sensor Aimpoint, Shannon M. Farrell Mar 2009

Waypoint Generation Based On Sensor Aimpoint, Shannon M. Farrell

Theses and Dissertations

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has emphasized a need for a greater number of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets to support combatant commanders and military operations globally. Unmanned systems, especially MAVs, used as ISR platforms provide the ability to maintain covertness during missions and help reduce the risk to human life. This research develops waypoint generation algorithms required to keep a point of interest (POI) in the field of view (FOV) of a fixed sensor on a micro air vehicle (MAV) in the presence of a constant wind.
Fixed sensors, while cheaper and less prone to mechanical failure …


Laser Covariance Vibrometry For Unsymmetrical Mode Detection, Michael C. Kobold Sep 2006

Laser Covariance Vibrometry For Unsymmetrical Mode Detection, Michael C. Kobold

Theses and Dissertations

Simulated cross - spectral covariance (CSC) from optical return from simulated surface vibration indicates CW phase modulation may be an appropriate phenomenology for adequate classification of vehicles by structural mode. The nonlinear structural to optical relationship is close to unity, avoiding nulls and high values; optical return contains sufficient spectral ID information necessary for data clustering. The FE model has contact between the homogeneous rolled armor and vehicle hull, a simple multi - layer skin model typical of most vehicles. Most of the high frequency energy moved to lower frequencies. This nonlinearity segments contact vibration modes into two classes: symmetrical …


Orbit Determination For A Microsatellite Rendezvous With A Non-Cooperative Target, Brian L. Foster Mar 2003

Orbit Determination For A Microsatellite Rendezvous With A Non-Cooperative Target, Brian L. Foster

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the minimum requirements to establish a satellite tracking system architecture for a hostile "parasitic microsatellite" to rendezvous with a larger, non-cooperative target satellite. Four types of tracking systems and their capabilities were reviewed with emphasis on "low-technology" level and/or mobile systems which could be used by technologically unsophisticated state or non-state adversaries. With the tracking system architecture selected, simulated tracking data was processed with a non- linear least squares orbit determination filter to determine and/or update the target satellite's state vector.


Analysis Of Cooperative Behavior For Autonomous Wide Area Search Munitions, Orhan Gozaydin Mar 2003

Analysis Of Cooperative Behavior For Autonomous Wide Area Search Munitions, Orhan Gozaydin

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates the effectiveness of autonomous wide area search munitions using cooperative and non-cooperative behavior algorithms under various scenarios. The scenarios involve multiple autonomous munitions searching for an unknown number of targets with different priorities at unknown locations. For the cooperative cases, communications are allowed between the munitions to help locate, identify, and decide to pursue an attack on a target or to continue searching the rest of the battlefield. For non cooperative cases, munitions independently search, detect, identify and decide to attack an identified target or continue to search. Performance of the cooperative munitions depends on numerous parameters …


An Examination Of Latency And Degradation Issues In Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle Environments, Shane A. Dougherty Mar 2002

An Examination Of Latency And Degradation Issues In Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle Environments, Shane A. Dougherty

Theses and Dissertations

Since the multidimensional knapsack problems are NP-hard problems, the exact solutions of knapsack problems often need excessive computing time and storage space. Thus, heuristic approaches are more practical for multidimensional knapsack problems as problems get large. This thesis presents the results of an empirical study of the performance of heuristic solution procedures based on the coefficients correlation structures and constraint slackness settings. In this thesis, the three representative greedy heuristics, Toyoda, Senju and Toyoda, and Loulou and Michaelides methods, are studied. The purpose of this thesis is to explore which heuristic of the three representative greedy heuristics perform best under …


Air Vehicle Optimal Trajectories For Radar Exposure Minimization, Michael C. Novy Mar 2001

Air Vehicle Optimal Trajectories For Radar Exposure Minimization, Michael C. Novy

Theses and Dissertations

This study addresses the problem of analyzing the single vehicle path planning problem for radar exposure minimization. The calculus of Variations and optimal control are applied to formulate the cost function and numerical algorithms are used to solve for the optimal paths. Cost sensitivity to path length is analyzed for flight against one radar; a second radar is then included in the formulation and the optimal path for flight between the radars is found for cases of equal and unequal radar power. The costs of the optimal path, direct path, and Voronoi diagram-generated paths are compared. Results indicate low sensitivity …