Navigation, Guidance, Control and Dynamics Commons^™

Missile Modeling And Simulation Of Nominal And Abnormal Scenarios Resulting From External Damage, James Manuel Floyd Iii

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This thesis presents the development of a six-degree-of-freedom flight simulation environment for missiles and the application thereof to investigate the flight performance of missiles when exposed to external damage. The simulation environment was designed to provide a realistic representation of missile flight dynamics including aerodynamic effects, flight control systems, and self-guidance. The simulation environment was designed to be modular, expandable, and include realistic models of external damage to the missile body obtained by adversarial counteraction.

The primary objective of this research was to examine missile flight performance when subjected to unspecified external damage, including changes in trajectory, stability, and controllability, …

Planetary Rover Inertial Navigation Applications: Pseudo Measurements And Wheel Terrain Interactions, Cagri Kilic

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Accurate localization is a critical component of any robotic system. During planetary missions, these systems are often limited by energy sources and slow spacecraft computers. Using proprioceptive localization (e.g., using an inertial measurement unit and wheel encoders) without external aiding is insufficient for accurate localization. This is mainly due to the integrated and unbounded errors of the inertial navigation solutions and the drifted position information from wheel encoders caused by wheel slippage. For this reason, planetary rovers often utilize exteroceptive (e.g., vision-based) sensors. On the one hand, localization with proprioceptive sensors is straightforward, computationally efficient, and continuous. On the other …

Instrumentation And Inertial Navigation Systems Design For Tensegrity Robot Implementations, Scott Edward Harper

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

One of the major challenges faced when developing missions for the exploration of planetary bodies is the risk these terrains pose on the science platform when using a traditional lander or wheeled rover. One means of developing platforms to traverse these harsh terrains is to utilize mobility systems comprised of tensegrity structures. These structures have the capacity to distribute loads across a network of axially loaded members such that they can be constructed in a very lightweight manner and morph their geometries when required. In literature, there has been significant progress in simulated environments to utilize tensegrity structures as mobility …