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Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Secretary’S Office Of Safety ‘Safety Academy’, Gabriel Dadi, Farshid Taherpour, Amanda Casolare

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) Safety Academy was developed to provide a structured and practical safety training program that strengthens safety leadership, planning, communication, employee engagement, hazard recognition, and continuous improvement across KYTC operations. The program was refined over the course of multiple discussions with Cabinet representatives to ensure that the content reflected the needs and responsibilities of KYTC personnel. The final Safety Academy consists of six modules: Safety Academy Welcome, Safety Leadership, Safety Planning, Safety Engagement, Hazard Recognition, and Safety Academy Closeout and Evaluation. The modules combine instructional content with discussions, practical examples, group exercises, and KYTC-related scenarios to …

Determination Of The Content Of Water-Soluble Vitamins In The Composition Of Beet Beetroot Composition, Jasur Esirgapovich Safarov, Shakhnoza Abduvaxitovna Sultanova, Muhammad Rasul Oglu Najafli, Doston Ishmuhammat Ugli Samandarov

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

The aim of this study was to determine the content of water-soluble vitamins in various parts of beetroot (pulp, leaves and stems) that had been subjected to various drying methods in a bid to explore the effect of physical processes, i.e., the application of ultrasound, on micronutrient preservation. The experiments were performed at the Department of Service Technologies of Tashkent State Technical University, and chromatographic analysis was performed in the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Chromatography was performed on Agilent-1200 chromatograph with Exlipse XDB C18 column and diode array detector using …

Motor Imagery Eeg Decoding For Brain-Computer Interfaces: Structured Representation, Transfer, And Drift, Yiming Shen

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Motor imagery EEG decoding is often summarized by the accuracy of a final classifier, but the classifier is only the last stage of the pipeline. Before classification, the signal has already been shaped by preprocessing, feature extraction, source-session organization, and adaptation. This dissertation studies how feature representation, source-session transfer, and drift shape reliable MI-EEG decoding for brain-computer interfaces.

It first studies within-session decoding on public MI-EEG datasets using nested validation that keeps preprocessing, feature fitting, and model selection inside the training folds. This analysis separates gains from feature representation from gains due to nonlinear classification, and relates both comparisons to …

Neural Network Driven By Electrochemical Performance Data For Predicting The Discharge Termination Time Of Seawater Electrolyte-Based Metal-Air Batteries, Peng-Peng Shen, Yi-Chi Pan, Yu-Rong Liu, Lu-Dan Zhang, Ning Niu, Guan-Jun Wang, De-Kun Yang, Xin-Long Tian, Peng Rao

Journal of Electrochemistry

Seawater electrolyte-based metal-air batteries exhibit great promise for marine energy supply systems. However, conventional statistical analysis methods, though applicable to seawater metal-air battery lifetime prediction, have inherent limitations of insufficient prediction accuracy and large error. Herein, a deep time-series regression framework based on InceptionTime and incorporating prior-biased attention pooling is proposed to construct a nonlinear mapping between electrochemical performance sequences and the discharge termination time of catalysts. Specifically, chronoamperometric profiles are employed to extract long-term stability features, while prior knowledge derived from linear sweep voltammetry is introduced to strengthen the attention weighting over critical potential regions. Under a nested leave-one-catalyst-out …

Design And Fabrication Of 3d Bioprinted Scaffold: Experimental And Machine Learning Methods, Mohan K. Dey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The development of reliable hydrogel-based scaffolds for extrusion bioprinting remains limited by the poor structural fidelity of low-viscosity bioinks and the lack of robust, high-throughput quality evaluation methods. This dissertation can resolve such challenges by developing the combination of optimized hydrogel formulations, cryogenic-assisted bioprinting, and artificial intelligence (AI)-based scaffold evaluation to the use of tissue engineering and preclinical cancer modelling applications. To assess the rheological behavior, printability, mechanical properties, and biocompatibility of the alginate – gelatin (Alg–Gel) system, a novel system of hydrogel was developed and characterized using Alg–Gel hydrogel system. The 7% alginate, 8% gelatin mixture was found to …

Residential Cooling Energy Efficiency During Heatwaves In South Texas, Rosa A. Castan, Gasser G. Ali

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Heatwaves have become increasingly intense and frequent in recent years. As a result, residents are forced to rely on air-conditioning systems, a major contributor to high energy consumption. South Texas is one of the regions that has been affected by historically extreme heat. This paper explores the challenges this region has faced due to heatwaves and the strategies adopted to mitigate their effects. It investigates the use of cooling technologies, energy-related habits, and investment in home construction to reduce indoor heat and manage electricity bills. A literature review is performed to help identify relevant factors related to maximizing energy efficiency. …

In-Orbit Demonstration Of The Vyom-2u: A Green Monopropellant-Based Propulsion System Onboard Isro's Pslv C60 Poem-4, Ashtesh Kumar, Tushar Jadav, Prashant Singh, Rajat Kumar, Sajo George, Sivakami S., Rohit Shanbhag, Neel Gharat, Shubham Singh, Henry Sam, Suman Vadla

Small Satellite Conference

Vyom 2U is a compact 2U green monopropellant propulsion system designed to deliver a total impulse of 1700 Ns. At Beginning-of-Life (BOL) conditions, corresponding to a tank pressure of 24 bar, the thruster can deliver up to 1.1 N with a specific impulse of approximately 250 s, while requiring a peak electrical power of 15 W. At an operating pressure of 14 bar, the propulsion system delivers a thrust of approximately 0.67 N with a specific impulse of about 238 s. This operating point was deliberately selected for in-orbit operations to maintain sub-newton thrust levels compatible with the attitude control …

Payload Selection To Correlate Shielding Performance With Molecular Structure And Elemental Composition For Rosisat: The Radiation Orbital Shielding Investigation Satellite, Chase Patterson, Jacob L. Blanton, Kylie Nager

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

Exposure to space weather in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) environment poses significant challenges to both the integrity and longevity of orbital hardware, as well as the health of astronauts, driving the necessity for improved means of radiation shielding for future missions. With a 1U CubeSat formfactor, ROSISat is a planned LEO mission that aims to characterize the radiation shielding capabilities of seven candidate materials: ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene, boron nitride, carbon nanotubes, boron nitride nanotubes with polyethylene fibers, carbon fiber reinforced composite, and aerographene, as well as two control materials: aluminum 6061 and ep33. By comparing the shielding performance …

First Generation Of Project A.S.P.I.R.E. – A 1u Cubesat Mission For Technology Demonstration And Student Involvement In New Zealand, Shuanghui Zhao, Shunxing Shi, Kristen Lian, Rose Peens-Hough, Arami Peens-Hough, Changrui Wang, Joowon Hwang, Jerry Sun, Edward Sun

Small Satellite Conference

MOTIVATION

A feasibility study conducted at an Auckland secondary school in December 2024 found strong interest in satellite-related learning. Following an outreach presentation, 63 students (Majority aged 15 - 18) completed a questionnaire, with an average interest rating of 4.86/5. The most popular subjects were Orbital Physics, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering (fig. 1).

Microsat For Refueling Mission Demonstrator In Vleo, Gyusun Kim

Small Satellite Conference

Recently, active research and technological development have been conducted on various mission application in VLEO(Very Low Earth Orbit) using MicroSat. However, the limited payload accommodation capability of MicroSat poses significant challenges for high optical resolution commercial or national-level practical missions. In contrast, satellites of 2,000 kg in size have performed well in low-Earth orbit for the very high optical resolution missions required so far (e.g., 30 cm-level resolution optical satellites) in 450 km ~ 600 km orbit altitude, but in order to meet the continuously increasing resolution requirements in the future optical imagery market (e.g., 15 cm-level resolution), the optical …

Mission Orientated Flight Software Development: Cubestep, Tirth Thakkar, Howard Lee, Viren Kumar, Maranda Laws, Shridhi Seth, Marco Maggia, Navid Nakhjiri

Small Satellite Conference

Small satellite teams often develop flight software and mission operations separately, leading to software behaviors that drift out of sync with ground procedures. To fix this, we present a co-design approach that directly links mission goals and operational procedures to the onboard flight software architecture. Demonstrated on the CubeSTEP-Cerberus mission using NASA’s F′ framework and FreeRTOS, our system maps mission intent into five constrained software states (Initialization, Safe, Idle, Experiment, and Transmit) guarded by automated health checks. This co-design strategy ensures the spacecraft acts autonomously to preserve its goals while strictly maintaining operator control over critical decisions.

Feasibility Study Of A 3d-Printed Thermally Insulated Battery Compartment For Cubesats, Michal Kolodynski, Konrad Kij, Michal Radawiec

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference

A Stackable Multi-Mppt Power Architecture With Paralleled Inputs For Scalable Cubesat Solar Energy Harvesting, Muhammed Syedali N., Anamika A. Kamath, Nithin Krishnan S. S., Ashfaque K. P., Sijo George, Arun P., Jr-Chiun Roger Tsai, Tensae Ali, Jesmin Jose, Athira B. S.

Small Satellite Conference

In traditional CubeSat configurations, the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) circuit acts as a critical single point of failure because all harvested solar energy is funneled through a single, non-redundant conversion stage. Consequently, the failure of this individual component completely blocks power delivery to the system, permanently stranding otherwise healthy solar arrays and batteries and causing catastrophic mission termination.

This work introduces a modular, stackable solar energy architecture that distributes power conditioning across multiple identical, autonomous modules connected to shared PV and battery buses. By relying purely on analog input-voltage regulation at a common operating point, it eliminates radiation-vulnerable digital …

Probe Cytotoxic And Oxidative Stress Effects Of Nanoplastics On Caco-2 Cells: Insights From Raman Spectroscopy And Machine Learning, Bryan Gustafson, Negar Kosari, Emily Brothersen, Morgan Mosher, Anhong Zhou

Biological Engineering Student Research

Nanoplastics and microplastics have become an increasing ecological and health concern due to their widespread presence in the environment and food chain. In this study, Caco-2 cells were used as an in vitro model of the human intestinal epithelium to investigate the cytotoxic effects of polystyrene nanoparticles and microparticles of varying sizes, concentrations, and surface modification. Oxidative stress and apoptosis were evaluated following particle exposure. Raman spectroscopy, combined with machine learning analysis, was employed to detect and characterize biochemical alterations in the cells. Several peak ratios were selected to cluster data depending on size. A correlation between apoptosis and both …

Lego®-Based Cubesats For Space Outreach, Stefan Brandle, Joshua Brown, Evan Smith, Drew Nye, Sydney Reddy, Twidy Kwae, Kaiya Grzesiak, Matthew Roderer, John Hetz

Small Satellite Conference

Taylor University Computer Science and Engineering is building a satellite having a LEGO®-robotics-based payload.

Mission Goals

• Have university students build a novel ELEO satellite
• Demonstrate viability of LEGO robotics electronics in space for short-term low-altitude missions
• Enhance space awareness by capturing the public's imagination through integral use of LEGO in an actual satellite
• Identify partners willing to provide advice and promote this project
• Create additional pathways for K-12 and university student participation in building satellites and satellite-related projects
• Support other space-education organizations through a high-visibility satellite project
• Continue space outreach efforts in the spirit of the ThinSat project
• ThinSat was …

Multipoint Sensor Constellations Demonstrated On Spear-1 Using Radstar, Black Box, And Fastbus+, Jeff Dailey, Matt Orvis, John Pugsley, Matt Voss, Hank Voss, Nathan Turner, Dillon Embry, Gretchen Barnes, Mike Schuckel, Nathan Daniels

Small Satellite Conference

NearSpace Launch (NSL) has developed and flown both multipoint sensor constellations and hosted-payload smallsat constellations since 2014, supporting missions for educational, commercial, and government partners. These missions enable distributed, multipoint sensing by combining compact sensor suites with persistent, low-latency satellite links and a common, time-ordered data architecture suitable for constellation operations. Recent flight heritage includes 24/7 space-to-Internet communications and rapid Launch and Early Operations Phase (LEOP) telemetry acquisition to support early identification, commissioning, and anomaly response. Most recently, the Space Power and Energy Advanced Reconnaissance (SPEAR-1) constellation demonstrated this multipoint architecture while maturing advanced power-generation and energy-storage technologies relevant to …

Systems Progress Overview Of Rosisat: The Radiation Orbital Shielding Investigation Satellite, Chase Patterson, Jacob Blanton, Jayden Mcdonald, Kylie Nager, Colson Walker, Francisco Crespo Cutillas

Small Satellite Conference

Exposure to space weather in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) space weather environment poses significant challenges to both the integrity and longevity of orbital hardware, as well as the health of astronauts, driving the necessity for improved means of radiation shielding for future manned and unmanned missions. With a 1U CubeSat formfactor, ROSISat is a planned LEO mission that aims to characterize the radiation shielding capabilities of seven candidate materials. By comparing the shielding performance of each composite and constituent material, ROSISat will place a specific focus on correlating how molecular structure influences radiation shielding. Further, current simulations lack the …

Intel® Government Technologies Space Products: Leading Edge Compute For Space, Robert Ciccariello, Ricardo Ascazubi, Kyle Dobkins, Nitesh Melwani, Ed Mily, Mike Nassan, Sean O’Neill, Ruchika Singh, Dan Weinstein

Small Satellite Conference

Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components are unlikely to meet the environmental survivability and assurance requirements to accomplish mission objectives in the harsh space environment. On the opposite end of the spectrum, developing custom space components on leading-edge technologies will often require multiple contractors and lengthy R&D efforts that significantly increase development costs and timelines. Intel Government Technologies (IGT) is introducing a space product roadmap, focused on space grade systems-in-package (SiPs) designed to address the transition from bespoke legacy architectures to low-SWaP, high-performance processing platforms for on-orbit systems. IGT Space Products are derived from Intel’s latest commercial technology and are uniquely configured, …

Distributed Avionics As A Foundational Architecture For Cubesat Constellations And Swarms, Aaron S. Swagei, Ali Guarneros-Luna

Small Satellite Conference

Motivation

CubeSat constellations and swarms require spacecraft that can tolerate subsystem faults without relying exclusively on a single centralized flight computer. Distributing sensing, control, and fault-management authority can improve containment and enable graceful degradation.

Objective

Develop and experimentally evaluate a distributed CubeSat avionics architecture in which subsystem nodes retain local fault-management authority while an F´-based OBC provides mission-level coordination.

The FlatSat is used as a representative spacecraft-level building block for future constellation and swarm architectures.

Operationalizing On-Orbit Repair: A Conops For Gator Arms Small Satellite Servicing, Anais Mera-Sarnelli, Aimee Dew, Daniel Radu, Chrispher Petersen, Michael Generale

Small Satellite Conference

Mission Definition

• GATOR Arms (Galactic Autonomous Twin Operational Robotic Arms) was designed to provide in-space servicing to small satellites in LEO.
• Small satellites currently have limited servicing options, thus localized component failures can prematurely end otherwise viable missions.
• This poster develops the CONOPS for an operational servicing mission involving on-orbit inspection, repair, refurbishment, reconfiguration, reboost, or repurposing of client satellites for extended missions.
• The representative servicing task is the recovery and reconfiguration of an external deployable such as a solar panel, antenna, or radiator flap.
• GATOR Arms targets a 2-4 year servicing life, end-of-life disposal within 5 years of mission …

Tracking Assembly For The Pulse-A Optical Ground Station, Rodrigo Spinola E Castro, Ashley Ashiku, Elizabeth Rosario, Juan Ignacio Prieto Asbun, Robert Pitu, Tian Zhong

Small Satellite Conference

PULSE-A is the University of Chicago’s student-led 3U CubeSat mission to demonstrate a space-to-ground optical downlink at a data rate of 1 to 10 Mbps using circular polarization shift keying (CPolSK).

Micro-Servicer Swarms For Responsive Smallsat Sustainment: The Sdaw Mothership Architecture, Wanjiku Chebet Kanjumba

Small Satellite Conference

The Challenge:

Sustaining The Mega-Constellation Era: LEO has shifted from a sparse domain into critical global infrastructure. With thousands of satellites on-orbit and tens of thousands more planned, sustainability is no longer guaranteed by launch activity alone; it depends on the ability to service, repair, and responsibly dispose of assets at scale.

• 7,500+ operational satellites in LEO (2024); 50,000+ projected within a decade
• 1,500+ trackable fragments from the 2021 Russian ASAT test; 1,700+ Starlink avoidance maneuvers followed
• ≥ 5 / yr large debris objects removed from LEO yearly to stabilize it (Liou & Johnson)

The Servicing Gap: MEV, OSAM-1, and …

Helio: Ai Solar Weather Forecasting For Proactive Small Satellite Constellation Response, Kylie Nager, James Kirk, Cagri Kilic

Small Satellite Conference

Challenge:

Small satellite constellations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) operate in an environment directly exposed to space weather while providing communications, remote sensing, positioning, and other critical services. Geomagnetic storms heat and expand the thermosphere, increasing neutral density, atmospheric drag, and orbital decay. These effects are especially hazardous during post-deployment and orbit-raising operations when satellites remain at low altitude with limited propulsion and recovery margins.

Operational Gap:

NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center products provide essential situational awareness, but satellite operators must still translate environmental forecasts into spacecraft-specific decisions. This translation can introduce operational delay particularly when protective actions must be …

Comparison Of Cubesat And Pocketqube Mission Timelines And Costs, Benjamin Skinner, Brian Damitz, Nathan Ford, Brian Iverson, David Long

Small Satellite Conference

PocketQube missions promise to reduce costs, speed up development timelines, and increase pedagogical value. We compared this mission format to CubeSat mission to compare relative strengths and weaknesses.

Development Of A Design Tool For 3d-Printable Cold Gas Thruster Systems For Nanosatellite Missions, Mikolaj Szyszka, Katherine Smith

Small Satellite Conference

Currently, there are 5219 Nanosatellites and CubeSats in orbit [1]. A decade ago, this number was only 800 [1], with forecasts predicting a total of 14,000 small satellites in orbit by 2033 [2]. However, out of the ones that are currently operational, only about 5% are equipped with a propulsion system. Omitting the electric and classified thrusters, cold gas systems are the most popular due to their simplicity and ease of operation. This shows a general lack of manoeuvrability and agility within small satellites in orbit. The proposed C.O.N.E tool aims to bridge the gap between nanosatellite manufacturers and simple …

Development Of Low-Cost And Mobile University Ground Stations, Michael Cargill, Matthew Watson, Patrick Bailey, Jacob Boutin, Wout De Backer

Small Satellite Conference

Recent years have seen a deluge of university-class small satellite missions, driving an increase in demand for ground stations. SatNOGS is an open-source network of ground stations allowing users to schedule observations on each others’ hardware. Most stations are fixed in-place. Mobile stations lack endurance or are high cost. There is a gap for a low-cost option for groups needing mobility.

Measuring Space Weather Through Nitrogen-Vacancy Diamond Quantum Magnetometry: A Cubesat Mission Exploration, Patrick Bailey, Alberto Diaz, Jacob Boutin, Austin Downey, Wout De Backer

Small Satellite Conference

1. The Challenge

• Solar weather is constantly changing with adverse effects on earth and the space around it
• Solar flares cause communication blackouts
• Coronal mass ejections can damage satellite hardware, and cause geomagnetic induced currents that can damage the power grid
• Difficult to measure these effects in real-time

The Effects Of Space On Pharmacology And Traditional Medicine: A Review Of Current Literature And Its Potential Impacts On Space Therapeutics, Pratyush Majumdar

Small Satellite Conference

Astronauts in space commonly take medicine for sleep disorders, muscle aches, and other miscellaneous conditions. These medications are taken under the assumption that they will work in space comparable to their effect on Earth, but mounting evidence is emerging to demonstrate that this is not the case. Using the principles of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, there are many physiological changes that alter how a drug is processed, changing their therapeutic effect. As mission times get longer, there is a heavier need to understand these changes and compensate for them in order to keep astronauts safe.

Toward Plug-And-Play Sensor Integration: A Multi-Protocol Hardware Bridge For Nanosatellites, Pawan Kumar, Moritz P. Heimbach, Shayarrn Khatiwada, Jiten Thapa, Marco Schmidt

Small Satellite Conference

COTS sensors speak many protocols; but the satellite bus understands only a few. An FPGA hardware bridge board reroutes heterogeneous sensor protocols (UART, SPI, RS-422, RS-485) to the single communication channel with minimum latency supporting plug-and-play with no bus redesign.

Software For The Alpha Cubesat Mission: System Architecture, Development, And Testing Behind Successful Flight Operations, Eric Zhang, Jonathan Ma, Joshua Umansky-Castro, Lauren Greenhill, Duncan Mcdonald, Damian Hackett, Maria Boza, Cameron Goddard

Small Satellite Conference

Alpha CubeSat is a 1U CubeSat designed, built, and operated by a student-led team at Cornell University. Its primary mission is to deploy a free-flying lightsail in low Earth orbit, carrying gram-scale "ChipSat" flight computers as a demonstration of low-cost distributed sensing in space. The spacecraft was built around commercial, off-the-shelf hardware, including a Teensy 3.5 microcontroller as the primary flight computer and a RockBLOCK Iridium modem for communication, and was developed and flown under the constraints that define a student program: a small power budget, a rotating team, limited development time, and an intermittent operations radio link. The CubeSat …