Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Aerial Screw Vtol Rotorcraft, Macale Rielly, Alexa Culp, Thomas Osteen, Adeline Perry

Senior Design Project For Engineers

Known as the “Renaissance Man,” DaVinci’s impressive knowledge of mechanics and inventive prowess would influence engineers and innovators hundreds of years later to make human flight a reality. However, due to the limited capacity of engineering and manufacturing at the time, his invention had been shallowly investigated in a production setting. This project strove to properly acknowledge DaVinci’s invention by thorough examination and critical analysis of his concept with the hopes of gaining a better understanding of why it is considered the “foundation of vertical flight”.

An iterative design approach was employed, utilizing faculty and university resources, team knowledge from …

Evaluation Framework For Cislunar Space Domain Awareness (Sda) Systems, Simon R. Knister

Theses and Dissertations

Modern space missions are increasingly transiting cislunar space, requiring expansion of existing Space Traffic Management (STM) functions. Legacy Space Domain Awareness (SDA) systems were not purpose-built to detect and track cislunar objects, which could require acquisition of a new system of systems. There are numerous parameters that could be varied for each system, as well as the type and location of systems across the architecture. This research attempts to solve this problem by applying a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) approach to assess the performance and financial burden of a given system of systems. Fitness metrics are developed based upon the …

Solar-Powered Exploration Of The Venus Atmosphere, Marc Migliozzi, Cory Everman, Rebecca Buerhle, Umar Muhammed, Steven Abbate, Chase Champagne

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective of this study was to design a solar powered, unmanned aircraft to orbit in the upper Venus atmosphere and search for signs of alien life. Topics of flight conditions, signs of life, basic mission plan, source of power, design process, instrumentation, and final designs are covered. Solar energy is ideal for this type of mission because it is the only reliable and abundant energy source accessible for long term space travel. The target altitude, being 60 to 70 km, has winds of up to 95 m/s. The aircraft will need to remain stable under such conditions. Due to …