Engineering Commons^™

Design And Performance Of A Communications System For A Low-Cost High Altitude Balloon Platform For Troposphere And Stratosphere Research, Noemí Miguélez Gómez

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

AFOSR Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI), "Integrated Measurement and Modeling Characterization of Stratospheric Turbulence", is a 5-year effort to resolve significant operational issues concerning hypersonic vehicle aerothermodynamics, boundary layer stability, and aero-optical propagation. In situ turbulence measurements along with modeling will quantify spatiotemporal statistics and the dependence of stratospheric turbulence on underlying meteorology to a degree not previously possible. Data from high altitude balloons sampling up to kHz is required to characterize turbulence to the inner-scale, or smaller, over paltitudes from 20 km to 35+ km.

This thesis presents the development of a standard balloon bus, based on reliable COTS …

Efficient Privacy-Aware Imagery Data Analysis, Yifan Tian

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The widespread use of smartphones and camera-coupled Internet of Thing (IoT) devices triggers an explosive growth of imagery data. To extract and process the rich contents contained in imagery data, various image analysis techniques have been investigated and applied to a spectrum of application scenarios. In recent years, breakthroughs in deep learning have powered a new revolution for image analysis in terms of effectiveness with high resource consumption. Given the fact that most smartphones and IoT devices have limited computational capability and battery life, they are not ready for the processing of computational intensive analytics over imagery data collected by …

Cleared To Land: Pilot Visual Detection Of Small Unmanned Aircraft During Final Approach, Ryan J. Wallace, Samuel M. Vance, Jon M. Loffi, Jamey Jacob, Jared C. Dunlap, Taylor A. Mitchell, Robert Thomas, Seabrook R. Whyte

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Sighting reports of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) by pilots, air traffic controllers, and other aviation stakeholders have continued to rise since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began tracking in 2014. In 2018, the FAA received 2,307 such reports, with 22.8% (n = 526) occurring during the final approach phase of flight. The threat of a midair collision between a manned aircraft and UAS is heightened during the final approach phase of flight, as the aircraft transitions from higher-altitude airspace to the low-altitude arena, now shared with drones. Absent UAS sense and avoid systems, pilots are forced to rely on …

Automated Dynamic Detection Of Self-Hiding Behavior In Android Apps, Luke Baird, Seth Rodgers

Student Works

Android applications that conceal themselves from a user, defined as exhibiting a “self-hiding behavior,” pose a threat to the user’s privacy, as these applications can live on a device undetected by the user. Malicious applications can do this to execute without being found by the user. Three lists are analyzed in particular—the home, running, and installed lists—as they are directly related to the typical Android app life cycle. Additionally, self-hiding behavior in the device admin list is analyzed due to the potential for catastrophic actions to be taken by device admin malware. This research proposes four dynamic analysis tools that …

The Jump Seat Experience, Luke Moriarty

Student Works

It was a Tuesday afternoon as I sat in the conference room of Aegean Airlines, an airline based in the country of Greece. My fellow peers, professors and I were here on a study abroad program, currently participating in a week long workshop with the airline company. It was lunch time, all gathered around at rectangle tables when we found out the answer to our long-anticipated question. The Chief Pilot stood up stating he had an announcement to make. All of the students including myself had a look confusion and anticipation on our faces, we wondered could this be what …

Temporal-Spatial Analysis Of Emergency Evacuation Traffic, Lorraine Margot Acevedo Loreto

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Mass evacuations, particularly those at a statewide level, represent the largest single-event traffic movements that exist. These complex events can last several days, cover thousands of miles of roadway, and include hundreds of thousands of people and vehicles. Often, they are also marked by enormous delay and congestion and are nearly always criticized for their inefficiency and lack of management. However, there are no standardized methods by which to systematically quantify traffic characteristics at the proper scale. This paper describes research to develop and apply an analytical method to measure and describe statewide mass-evacuations in a practical, cost-effective manner. The …

A Data Mining Methodology For Vehicle Crashworthiness Design, Xianping Du

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This study develops a systematic design methodology based on data mining theory for decision-making in the development of crashworthy vehicles. The new data mining methodology allows the exploration of a large crash simulation dataset to discover the underlying relationships among vehicle crash responses and design variables at multiple levels and to derive design rules based on the whole-vehicle safety requirements to make decisions about component-level and subcomponent-level design. The method can resolve a major issue with existing design approaches related to vehicle crashworthiness: that is, limited abilities to explore information from large datasets, which may hamper decision-making in the design …

Assessing Impacts Of Decentralizing Airpower Command And Control, Allen Goodwin Peck

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Centralized control is a fundamental tenet of joint airpower doctrine, yet there are operational situations in which some degree of decentralization may be appropriate. The purpose of this research was to quantitatively assess the impacts of decentralizing the command and control (C2) of airpower under varying operational conditions. The research used the experimental method to test hypotheses regarding decentralization of control. JAEX, a stochastic, attrition-based Blue-versus-Red war gaming model, generated the required data.

The mean difference between JAEX outcomes under centralized control and outcomes under decentralized control constituted the dependent variable for each experiment. The independent variables were the operational …

Risk Mitigation For Low Latitude Ground-Based Augmentation System (Gbas) Precision Approach Operations, Richard Walter Cole

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The ground-based augmentation system (GBAS) is a safety-critical system consisting of the hardware and software that augments the Global Positioning System (GPS) to provide precision approach and landing capability and is one of the navigational cornerstones of the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) global transition to space-based technologies. In low latitude regions, where the space-based augmentation system (SBAS) cannot provide adequate precision approach service due to large system errors induced by ionospheric delays, GBAS is the best option to provide the primary navigation function for the modernized global air traffic system. The purpose of the study was to identify patterns …

The Flight Risk Perception Scale (Frps): A Modified Risk Perception Scale For Measuring Risk Of Pilots In Aviation, Scott R. Winter, Dothag Truong, Joseph R. Keebler

Publications

Risk and risk perception remain focal areas of research within the aviation domain. The purpose of the current study was to assess an existing measure of a 26-item self-risk perception scale for pilots. A sample of 490 participants was used in the present study, and a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the original 26-item instrument. The findings indicated that there was a poor model fit of the original instrument. Through the use of modification indices, a new 13-item scale was produced, which resulted in a second-order CFA model. Flight risk was shown to be the second-order construct with general …

Competency Based Education: A Framework For A More Efficient And Safer Aviation Industry, Flavio A. C. Mendonca Ph.D., Julius Keller Ph.D., Brian G. Dillman Ph.D.

Publications

Aircraft design and reliability as well as pilots’ education and training have steadily and significantly improved in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, high-profile accidents still occur, even when the aircraft and related systems are operating adequately. Controlled flight into terrain, runway incursions accidents, and loss-of-control-in-flight are examples of mishaps in which inadequate decision-making, poor leadership, and ineffective communication are frequently cited as contributing factors. Conversely, the investigation of accidents (e.g., US Airways Flight 1549, in US, in 01/15/2009) and serious incidents (e.g., JJ 3756, in Brazil, in 06/17/2011) have indicated that flight crews have to be flexible and adaptable, think …

Multimode Nonlinear Vibration Analysis Of Stiffened Functionally Graded Double Curved Shells In A Thermal Environment, Boutros Azizi

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The motivation of the current work is to develop a multi-modal analysis of the nonlinear response of stiffened double curved shells made of functionally graded materials under thermal loads. The formulation is based on the first order shear deformation shell theory in conjunction with the von Kármán geometrical nonlinear strain-displacement relationships. The nonlinear equations of motion of stiffened double curved shell based on the extended Sanders’s theory were derived using Galerkin’s method. The resulting system of infinite nonlinear ordinary differential equations, that includes both cubic and quadratic nonlinear terms, was solved using a nonlinear dynamic software XPPAUT to obtain the …

Thermal Bending, Buckling And Post-Buckling Analysis Of Unsymmetrically Laminated Composite Beams With The Effects Of Moisture And Geometric Imperfections, Claudia Barreno

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis is concerned with the analytical study of the thermal bending, buckling, and post-buckling of unsymmetrically laminated composite beams with imperfection under hygrothermal effects. Three different boundary conditions will be considered on this study. The non-linear governing partial differential equations are derived by taking into account the von-Karman geometrical nonlinearity for an imperfect unsymmetrical laminated composite beam. Classical beam theory (CBT) as well as first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) will be used. The effects of temperature, angle of orientation, moisture variations, imperfection, and geometrical parameters, will be evaluated and discussed. Two different laminated composite laminates will be considered: …

Hybrid Structural Composites With Energy Harvesting Capabilities, Simon Furnes

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Hybrid materials have received significant interest due to the potential enhancements they provide over traditional materials such as sensing, actuating, energy scavenging, thermal management, and vibration damping. While traditional materials can be utilized for either one of these functions or loadbearing, the hybrid materials are superior as they allow combination of a wide array of functionalities whilst being suitable for load-bearing purposes.

The goal of this thesis is to elucidate the synergistic effects of hybridization of two piezoelectric materials; zinc oxide nanowires (ZnO NWs) and thin film of lead zirconium titanate (PZT) on the mechanical and energy harvesting of beams …

A Volume-Force Synthetic Disturbance Approach For High-Fidelity Of Unsteady Fluid Structure Interactions, Marina Kazarina

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the momentum source model, for generating synthetic vortical disturbance field in numerical simulations of unsteady fluid-structure interactions, access limitations of this approach, to find requirements for the computational domain, space and time resolution, and apply this model to investigate selected physical problems. For this reason a comprehensive parametric study of volume-force based method of generating spectral synthetic turbulence inside the computational domain is conducted first. The method is then extended to synthesize turbulence with arbitrary energy spectrum. The synthetic turbulence is generated through momentum source terms in Navier-Stokes equations, and the developed …

Apertured Waveguides For Electromagnetic Wave Transmission, Eduardo Antonio Rojas, Justin Troy Nussbaum, Thomas Mccrea Weller, Nathan Brad Crane

Publications

In some embodiments, an apertured waveguide includes a wall comprising a plurality of apertures and an interior channel along which electromagnetic waves can propagate, the interior channel being defined at least in part by the wall.

Guest Editorial Special Issue On Toward Securing Internet Of Connected Vehicles (Iov) From Virtual Vehicle Hijacking, Yue Cao, Houbing Song, Omprakash Kaiwartya, Sinem Coleri Ergen, Jaime Lloret, Naveed Ahmad

Publications

Today’s vehicles are no longer stand-alone transportation means, due to the advancements on vehicle-tovehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications enabled to access the Internet via recent technologies in mobile communications, including WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G, and even 5G networks. The Internet of vehicles was aimed toward sustainable developments in transportation by enhancing safety and efficiency. The sensor-enabled intelligent automation of vehicles’ mechanical operations enhances safety in on-road traveling, and cooperative traffic information sharing in vehicular networks improves traveling efficiency.

Bird Hazard Mitigation Training For Part 141 General Aviation Pilots: An Experimental Study, Flavio A. C. Mendonca, Richard O. Fanjoy Phd, Thomas Q. Carney

Publications

From 1990 through 2018 ==> 209,950 wildlife strikes in the U.S.,

Approximately 95% of those incidents involved birds;

Seventy aircraft destroyed as a result of wildlife strikes!

13 bird strikes 32 ==> fatalities;

• 244 wildlife strikes ==> 319 people injured!
• 224 bird strikes ==>299 people injured!

General aviation community;

• 97% of the strikes occurred below 3,500 feet AGL;
• There were 22,775 wildlife strikes ==> 26% caused damage to the aircraft!

Wildlife Hazard Management: An Analysis Of Wildlife Strikes Data From The Five Busiest Airports In Brasil: 2011-2018, Flavio A. C. Mendonca, Julius Keller, Carlos F. G. Schonhardt

Publications

Brasil ==> the largest country in Latin America - 8.514.876 Km²;

Booming aviation industry;

• From 2008 through 2017 ==>7.1% per year;
• 104 million passengers in 2018;
• International destinations – 21.8 million (~20%);
• U.S. - 4.4 million passengers;
• Argentina – 3.8 million passengers;
• Portugal & Chile – 1.7 million passengers;
• Brazilian Airlines – 38.3%.

Domestic Passengers 200 million in 2030; International Passengers 55 million in 2030.

Varying Class Schedules And Learning Effectiveness At Far Part 147 Aviation Maintenance Training Schools (Amts), Kristen Hammer

Student Works

Of the three learning styles, kinesthetic (hands-on) learning is the most common for individuals (Dinkel, 2011). This is especially relevant for people who work in technical, skill-based fields, such as aircraft maintenance. The hands-on learning style, coupled with a job that requires a great depth of systems knowledge, tool, equipment, and component manipulation, and a multitude of other physical job-related skills, requires that the student maximize his or her knowledge and skill retention while in training. The purpose of this research was to determine if FAR Part 147 Aviation Maintenance Technician School (AMTS) students would achieve more success, as measured …

Feasibility Of Circular Orbits For Proximity Operations In Strongly Perturbed Environments Around Uniformly Rotating Asteroids, Nicholas Peter Liapis

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Asteroids have been mapped and observed since 1801 when an Italian astronomer Guiseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres (Serio, Manara, & Sicoli, 2002). Since then, asteroids have been growing in popularity throughout the scientific community because they are thought to hold the information we need to understand how the solar system developed and why life exists on earth, as well as potential precious resources. This research studies different types of orbits that have been performed to date around asteroids and how they can be reworked to require less control effort. Different types of missions that have been sent to asteroids are discussed, …

Advanced Photogrammetric Modeling Of Dranoc Kullas Using Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, George Gebert, Liam Griffin, Justin Lawlor, Lauren Davis, Kylee Vander Velde, Sami Ali

Student Works

Small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS), also known as drones, offer new capabilities for cultural heritage preservation activities. Student researchers from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University have applied photogrammetric techniques based upon sUAS captured imagery to assist with historical site documentation and cultural heritage preservation in the Republic of Kosovo. Imagery from three locations -- Isniq, Dranoc and Junik -- highlight this work. Student researchers created georectified orthomosaics and 3D virtual objects. At each of these three locations the object of interest was a type of building known as a kulla. These kullas are fortified homes built for protecting large families and are …

Design Of Personnel Big Data Management System Based On Blockchain, Houbing Song, Jian Chen, Zhihan Lv

Publications

With the continuous development of information technology, enterprises, universities and governments are constantly stepping up the construction of electronic personnel information management system. The information of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people’s information are collected and stored into the system. So much information provides the cornerstone for the development of big data, if such data is tampered with or leaked, it will cause irreparable serious damage. However, in recent years, electronic archives have exposed a series of problems such as information leakage, information tampering, and information loss, which has made the reform of personnel information management more and …

Integrating Field Monitoring And Numerical Modeling To 3 Evaluate Performance Of A Levee Under 4 Climatic And Tidal Variations, Xavier A. Rivera-Hernandez, Ghada Ellithy, Farshid Vahedifard

Publications

Several short-duration and extreme hydraulic loadings impose time-dependent variably saturated seepage conditions on earthen 7 slopes and embankments. Difficulty assigning appropriate input parameters and lack of full-scale validation are among the main factors 8 introducing uncertainty and lack of confidence when performing numerical transient seepage analysis. This case study demonstrates how 9 to effectively use field-monitoring data to improve the numerical analysis of a levee under climatic and tidal variations. The case study 10 includes a silty sand setback levee located near Seattle. An array of tensiometers and soil moisture sensors installed within the levee’s embank11 ment and foundation, along …

Adaboost‑Based Security Level Classifcation Of Mobile Intelligent Terminals, Feng Wang, Houbing Song, Dingde Jiang, Hong Wen

Publications

With the rapid development of Internet of Things, massive mobile intelligent terminals are ready to access edge servers for real-time data calculation and interaction. However, the risk of private data leakage follows simultaneously. As the administrator of all intelligent terminals in a region, the edge server needs to clarify the ability of the managed intelligent terminals to defend against malicious attacks. Therefore, the security level classification for mobile intelligent terminals before accessing the network is indispensable. In this paper, we firstly propose a safety assessment method to detect the weakness of mobile intelligent terminals. Secondly, we match the evaluation results …

Mass Evacuation Effects On Transportation: A Comparative Analysis, Emily M. Jannace

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

Mass evacuations have changed greatly in the past two decades. Evacuations such as Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina, Florida during Hurricane Irma, and New York during the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, Hurricane Sandy, and Hurricane Irene have had significant impacts on future mass evacuations in terms of transportation. This paper takes these methods and analyzes the best approach in given situations based on volume capacity, impact, and cost to make recommendations that can be used by the three previously mention municipalities. With so many different techniques available, it is important to choose the one that moves the most people out of harm’s …

Comparative Analysis Of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations Manuals, Stephen M. Cigal

Student Works

With over 100,000 remote pilots in the United States, individuals and companies are rapidly incorporating unmanned aircraft system technologies into their everyday life and businesses models. The companies that use these technologies must comply with federal and state regulations in order to maintain a safe environment to operate. These operations must also be accepted by the general public. Since the FAA regulations for small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) went into effect in 2016, supplemented by additional state and/or local requirements, some companies have generated operations manuals (OM) to ensure consistent, safe flight that meets these requirements. By analyzing the OM’s …

Range Of Motion Evaluation Of A Final Frontier Design Iva Spacesuit Using Motion Capture, Ryan L. Kobrick, Nicholas Lopac, Chase Covello, Benjamin Banner, Theodore Southern, Nikolay Moiseev

Publications

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Spacesuit Utilization of Innovative Technology Laboratory (S.U.I.T. Lab) is focused on improving human performance in spaceflight by concentrating on spacesuit research for intravehicular activities (IVA) and extravehicular activities (EVA). The design and execution of range of motion (ROM) protocols in an experimental setting will provide insight on the functions and restrictions of spacesuits, aiding in current and future designs or modification. The S.U.I.T. Lab worked with Final Frontier Design (FFD) to provide a quantitative analysis protocol for seated arm mobility of their NASA Flight Opportunities Program (FOP) IVA spacesuit. The lab used reflective tracking markers on three …

Longitudinal Analysis Of Perceived And Objective Airline Performance Quality, Kaetlyn Blocker, Javad Gorjidooz

Student Works

Commercial air carrier performance is a multivariable function, uniquely and substantially impacted by passenger's perception of negative employee behavior. High industry visibility, coupled with exponential social media growth, has provided the incredible potential to either widen or narrow the perception-performance gap. The present research conducts a rare longitudinal evaluation of objective airline performance quality in contrast with consumer perceptions of perceived airline performance and the dynamic changes occurring therein. Additionally, the implications regarding air carriers facing both objective and perceived performance challenges, as well as implications for the industry as a whole, are discussed. Utilizing nearly 30 years of objective …

Prediction Of Noise Associated With An Isolated Uav Propeller, Samuel O. Afari

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The emergent field of interest in the Urban Air Mobility community is geared towards a world where aerial vehicles are commonplace. This poses the problem of the effects of the radiated noise. The present research presents an in-depth analysis of the noise generation mechanism of a propeller as a mode of propulsion of the said aerial vehicles. Numerical simulation utilizing a Hybrid Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) coupled with Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solver, is adopted on an isolated propeller modeled from the commercial DJI Phantom II 9450 propeller. The Spalart-Allmaras one equation turbulence model with rotation/curvature correction is used. The Farassat’s …