Digital Commons Network^™

Lunar Mining: Designing A Versatile Robotic Mining System, James Ehlers, Alexander Charters, Joshua Miraglia, Rian Simpson

Utah Space Grant Consortium

The annual NASA Robotic Mining Challenge: Lunabotics tasks teams with building robots capable of traversing and mining in a simulated Lunar terrain. The competition goal is to utilize automation and sensing alongside mechanical systems to harvest icy regolith (simulated with gravel) from beneath the satellite’s surface.

Creation And Optimization Of A Mechanical Obstacle Avoidance Sensor For Autonomous Exploration Of Venus, Ryan Hardin

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Exploration of the surface of Venus is currently one of the most lacking areas of planetary research in our solar system today. This is because the surface of Venus is an extremely hostile environment, especially when considering the use of conventional Mars-type rovers. With temperatures exceeding 400 degrees Celsius, pressures 90 times that of Earth, and a sulfuric acid atmosphere, traditional electronics would quickly fail.

A Preliminary Approach To Select An Origami Source Pattern For Deployable Space Arrays, Diana S. Bolanos

Utah Space Grant Consortium

This paper presents a systematic approach for selecting an origami pattern for deployable space array applications. A wide variety of origami patterns exist, thereby introducing a daunting task to decide on which pattern is most suitable for the application at hand. Similarly, different space missions present varying requirements. The focus of this paper is to provide aerospace engineers and designers with a framework for identifying optimal origami source models for space array applications.

Ultra-Low Power Adcs For Space Sensors And Instruments, Shea Smith

Utah Space Grant Consortium

A 28nm 0.1V 10-bit 2kS/s time domain ADC design is proposed. This design opens the doors to both low supply and low power space sensors and instruments. Due to the stringent voltage supply, unique challenges arise that are met with innovation in the sample switch and the quantizer design. These components of the ADC architecture are optimized to perform successfully at a 0.1V supply with a sample rate suitable for most sensor applications.

Assessing Thickness Accommodation Techniques For Deployable Hexagonal Origami Space Arrays, Collin Ynchausti

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Origami-based and origami-inspired designs provide paths to achieve highly compact, stowable designs, that can be deployed to large surface areas. This potential is highly beneficial to the area of space antennas and LIDAR as these require compact stowing in a launch payload, but large apertures when deployed in space. Because the engineering materials used to build these antennas are thick, thickness accommodation techniques must be applied to realize the same folding motions as the zero-thickness models. This paper presents a hexagonal twist origami pattern in thick materials using three different thickness accommodation techniques. These techniques are compared. The metrics used …

A Study Of Oxidation In Thin-Film Uranium-Niobium Alloys, Logan C. Page

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Uranium, a nuclear fuel material, can oxidize and degrade in reactor conditions. Previous studies have shown oxidation resistance in a uranium-niobium alloy, U-6Nb (six weight percent niobium in uranium). The nature of the oxides that form on sputtered U-6Nb thin films after long exposure to air was previously explored using neutron diffraction at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In the present work, we deposited thin films of uranium-niobium alloys for oxidation studies. We used ellipsometry to quantify the oxide growth over time as a function of niobium content. We found that the oxide thickness increases linearly with the logarithmic of time. …

Resolution Enhancement Limitations For Spaceborne Scatterometers, Harrison Garrett

Utah Space Grant Consortium

The main limitation to the resolution enhancement of spaceborne scatterometers is the amplification of both measurement noise and model error. A few components to model error include: model discretization errors, interpolation errors, and the aliasing of frequency content introduced by each measurement spatial response function (MSRF). Using bandlimited reconstruction theory, we estimate the maximum resolution enhancement of a given sampling geometry through its inherent maximum square bandlimit. Simulations suggest that under bandlimited assumptions, the number of independent and uniformly distributed samples are proportional to the area of the sampling geometry’s supported bandlimit. Furthermore, if we assume that the measurement noise …

Comparison Of Rayleigh-Scatter Lidar Temperature Climatologies In The Mesosphere And Lower Thermosphere Between The Traditional Reduction Method And The New Optimal Estimation Method, Jonathan Price

Utah Space Grant Consortium

An optimal estimation method (OEM) was used to obtain all-night temperature profiles from Rayleigh-scatter lidar (RSL) observations obtained by the original and updated lidar systems at Utah State University (USU). These data were used to produce annual climatologies of temperatures above USU. The climatology of temperatures from the original lidar, which operated from late 1993 through 2004, was compared with the climatology produced using the widely used Hauchecorne-Chanin method (HC). This comparison highlights the similarities at lower altitudes and differences, which start between 70 km and 80 km and extend to the top altitudes with the OEM temperatures warmer on …

Designing An Optimal Lighting Fixture For Extraterrestrial Crop Growth: Integrating Efficacy And Photobiology, Paul Kusuma

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Extraterrestrial crop growth will require the development of technologies that provide photons to drive photosynthesis. Light-emitting diode (LED) technology is the likely technology of choice due to 1) its inherent flexibility, and 2) its high efficiency. Here we describe two important considerations for the optimization of this system: photon efficacy (μmol of photons produced per joule of input electrical energy) and spectral effects on plant growth and development. With these two considerations, we suggest the design of an LED fixture for extraterrestrial crop growth that contains a 5:10:55:30 ratio of blue, green, red, and far-red photons (respectively). This would be …

Electromagnetic 3d Printing For Responsive Architectures With An Orthogonal Magnetic Field, Brian Elder

Utah Space Grant Consortium

The integration of nanomaterials with 3D printing can enable the creation of responsive architecture with highly tunable functional properties. Magnetic nanopatterning is attractive for its ability to produce untethered, high energy density actuation with a broad range of applications. For example, biocompatible materials (such as silicone rubber) can be programmed in an extrusion-based 3D printing process to create a responsive medical soft robot structure.

Pitch-Efficient Trajectory Tracking For Winged Evtol Uavs, Jacob B. Willis

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Current control methods for winged eVTOL UAVs consider the vehicle primarily as a fixed-wing aircraft with the addition of vertical thrust used only during takeoff and landing. These methods provide good long-range flight handling but fail to consider the full dynamics of the vehicle for tracking complex trajectories. We present a trajectory tracking controller for the full dynamics of a winged eVTOL UAV in hover, fixed-wing, and partially transitioned flight scenarios. We show that in low-to moderate-speed flight, trajectory tracking can be achieved using a variety of pitch angles. In these conditions, the pitch of the vehicle is a free …

Connecting Land Cover To Benthic Cover Within The Watershed: Quantifying Impacts Of Terrigenous Sediment On Coral Reef Health And Morphology Using Remote Sensing And Machine Learning, L. Kalai Ellis

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Erosion, with associated sedimentation of reefs and loss of habitat for marine and coastal species, is one of the most pressing environmental challenges in Hawaii. Identifying hotspots of soil erosion guides management on land, but limited work has been done connecting land cover to coral reef health and morphology. Current reef survey methods overgeneralize the spatial variation of benthic cover and this has been reflected in incorrect Geographic Information System (GIS) layers of the reef. We propose a novel and more holistic approach to improve accuracy by connecting sedimentation from source to sink using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned Surface …

Seeking The Origin Of Electromagnetic Signatures Of Black Holes, Alexandra B. Chanson

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Relativistic-jet formation in astrophysical black holes lacks a rigorously understood mechanism of energy extraction in the high-energy regime although, in recent years, progress has been made in extending the non-linear equations of Force-Free Electrodynamics (FFE) into the high-spin regime. In particular, M. J. Rodriguez and A. Strominger were able to show, using the Near Horizon Extremal Kerr spacetime, that the near horizon FFE solutions have an additional scaling symmetry which allows the construction of a pseudo-analytical infinite tower of solutions. These families of solutions stand in stark contrast to the relatively few full Kerr solutions found analytically: this tension can …

A Process To Produce Battery Grade Silicon From Natural Halloysite Clay, Nathan Clarke

Utah Space Grant Consortium

We demonstrate the production of silicon from a clay mineral, halloysite, as a low-cost silicon source for high-energy anodes in aviation batteries. The halloysite-derived silicon demonstrated 1800 mAh/g capacity after formation cycles, comparable to other developing silicon materials.

Long-Term Spatiotemporal Monitoring And Analysis Of Chlorophyll-A Concentrations In Utah Lake, Kaylee Tanner

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Utah Lake is a unique and valuable natural resource in the semi-arid Utah Valley. Shallow, turbid, eutrophic, and slightly saline, the lake degrades and stabilizes pollution well [1]. The lake is a highly productive ecosystem and provides ecological habitats, water storage, and recreation. Detection of harmful algal blooms (HABs), however, has closed Utah Lake beaches every summer since 2016 [2] and raised concerns over the health of the lake ecosystem [3, 4]. HABs, which involve excessive algal growth that can cause hypoxic and/or toxic water conditions [5], have numerous detrimental effects [6] on lakes and reservoirs in the United States …

Predicting Propofol-Induced Burst Suppression Using An Individualized Model-Based Approach Over Repeated Treatments, Jason C. Huang

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Our group is investigating the antidepressant effects of high-dose propofol, but dosing propofol to induce standardized changes in EEG activity (“burst suppression”) is challenging due to limited knowledge of each subject’s pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD). In this paper, we approximated PK-PD models for propofol-induced burst suppression (PIBS), based on multiple subjects over repeated treatments. We then applied these models to predict BSR in each subject’s repeated treatment, then evaluate their predictive performances. We hypothesized that predicting BSR from a greater number of previous treatments would improve performance, but our current results are not conclusive enough to validate the hypothesis. …

Defect Detection Limits For Additively Manufactured Parts Using Current Thermography Techniques, Nicholas J. Wallace

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Additive manufacturing (AM) will support NASA in their moon and mars missions by reducing the amount of redundant equipment carried into space and by providing crew members with the flexibility to design and create parts as needed. The ability to monitor the quality of these additively manufactured parts is critical, especially when using recycled or in-situ materials as NASA plans to do. This project assesses the possibility of detecting small, shallow AM defects with existing active thermography techniques. An axisymmetric, numerical model was created in COMSOL to simulate the heat transfer within AM structures during active thermography. The effects of …

Aerodynamic Interactions Of Synchronized Propellers, Nathan Welker

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Emerging advances in electric-propulsion technology are enabling aircraft to use distributed electric propulsion (DEP) to increase efficiency and maneuverability. Distributed electric propulsion can also provide unique take-off and landing abilities which are not commonly found on traditional aircraft. The implementation of DEP effectively decreases the spacing between propellers, introducing complex aerodynamic interactions that are not well understood. This study aims to obtain experimental measurements of the flow fields of synchronized propellers at close-proximity in a side-by-side configuration using both 2D particle image velocimetry (PIV) and 3D stereoscopic PIV (SPIV) in a wind tunnel. The results of this work will be …

Monitoring Acute Kidney Injury Risk With Urine Oxygen Partial Pressure, Lars Lofgren

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication associated with cardiac surgery. AKI is associated with increased hospital costs, hospital length of stay (LOS), and mortality risk. The current diagnostic criteria rely on serum creatinine measurements and urine output data. Serum creatinine is not renal specific. It is known that there are factors other than renal injury that influence serum creatine concentrations. Serum creatinine levels are measured as concentrations which means large changes in fluid balance may alter the serum creatinine concentration. Urine output is not a reliable measurement of renal injury, either. During surgery it is common to administer …

Feedback Control Of Particle Positions Using Electric Fields And Chemical Gradients, Mark Mcdonald

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Programmable self-assembly is a promising route to new biomaterial and metamaterial synthesis methods. An important step towards programmable self-assembly is moving component parts to desired locations. We do this by designing and simulating a controller that modifies an external field to move particles on desired paths. We first design a controller using electric fields by modifying established methods, then we apply the insights gained from the electric field controller to a chemical controller that uses model predictive control.

Utah State University Commencement, 2021 – College Of Agriculture And Applied Sciences Convocation, Utah State University

Commencement Programs

2021 Convocation for the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences of Utah State University.

Meta-Analysis Reveals Different Competition Effects On Tree Growth Resistance And Resilience To Drought, Daniele Castagneri, Giorgio Vacchiano, Andrew Hacket-Pain, R. Justin Derose, Tamir Klein, Alessandra Bottero

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Drought will increasingly threaten forest ecosystems worldwide. Understanding how competition influences tree growth response to drought is essential for forest management aiming at climate change adaptation. However, published results from individual case studies are heterogeneous and sometimes contradictory. We reviewed 166 cases from the peer-reviewed literature to assess the influence of stand-level competition on tree growth response to drought. We monitored five indicators of tree growth response: mean sensitivity (inter-annual tree ring width variability); association between inter-annual growth variability and water availability; resistance; recovery; and resilience to drought. Vote counting did not indicate a consistent effect of competition on mean …

Utah State University Commencement, 2021 – Moab Campus, Utah State University

Commencement Programs

2021 Commencement Ceremony for the Moab Campus of Utah State University.

Phase-Space Dynamics Of Runaway Electrons In Tokamaks, Gavin Held

Physics Capstone Projects

Nuclear fusion converts the rest mass energy of ions like the deuteron and triton into kinetic energy. In theory, this energy can be harvested from a thermonuclear reactor to provide power outputs on the scale of 500 MW. High temperatures are needed for significant fusion to occur, hence the tokamak (a modern fusion confinement device) employs strong magnetic fields to keep the ionized gas (plasma) away from the tokamak wall. However, a problem that occasionally arises in a tokamak is that during a disruption an inductive electric field is created which can accelerate electrons to relativistic speeds (these electrons are …

Wrdc 2021, Don Albrecht

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Standard Non-Uniform Noise Dataset, Andres Imperial, John M. Edwards

Browse all Datasets

Fixed Pattern Noise Non-Uniformity Correction through K-Means Clustering

Fixed pattern noise removal from imagery by software correction is a practical approach compared to a physical hardware correction because it allows for correction post-capture of the imagery. Fixed pattern noise presents a unique challenge for de-noising techniques as the noise does not present itself where large number statistics are effective. Traditional noise removal techniques such as blurring or despeckling produce poor correction results because of a lack of noise identification. Other correction methods developed for fixed pattern noise can often present another problem of misidentification of noise. This problem can result …

What City Council Members Can Do To Strengthen The Impact Of Utah Girls And Women, Susan R. Madsen, Staci Liljegren, Diane Rindlisbacher

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

This idea sheet is based on several 2021 remote gatherings of more than 25 former and current city council members representing a variety of jurisdictions across the state of Utah. Their discussions focused on ways to magnify women in government, community/youth outreach, policy development, encouraging and mentoring, and shape the conversation. Local elected officials can play an important and influential role in strengthening the impact of girls and women in their communities.

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Utah Women And Work: Career Advancement Challenges, Marin Christensen, Susan R. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2021 has impacted every Utahn in significant ways. Yet, research has found that women have been even more negatively impacted than men. For example, nearly 3 million American women have left the labor force over the past year and not returned. In Utah, from 2019 to 2020, jobs held by women declined at more than twice the rate of men. In addition, many studies have found that, for American couples, there continue to be gender gaps in household responsibilities even if both individuals work full-time. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research reported that women, and particularly …

Size And Scope Of Utah County Agriculture 2019, Ryan Feuz, Ryan Larsen, Dean Miner

All Current Publications

Utah County is located in the middle of the state. The county seat and largest city is Provo. As of 2018, the population of the county was estimated at 622,213. The Wasatch Mountain Range is in the eastern portion of the county. The elevation drops quickly from the mountains in the east to the Utah Lake valley in the center of the county. This fact sheet reviews land ownership, crop and livestock production, and farm income and age of operators.

Chloroplast Genomes In Populus (Salicaceae): Comparisons From An Intensively Sampled Genus Reveal Dynamic Patterns Of Evolution, Jiawei Zhou, Shuo Zhang, Jie Wang, Hongmei Shen, Bin Ai, Wei Gao, Cuijun Zhang, Qili Fei, Daojun Yuan, Zhiqiang Wu, Luke R. Tembrock, Sen Li, Cuiha Gu, Xuezhu Liao

Aspen Bibliography

The chloroplast is one of two organelles containing a separate genome that codes for essential and distinct cellular functions such as photosynthesis. Given the importance of chloroplasts in plant metabolism, the genomic architecture and gene content have been strongly conserved through long periods of time and as such are useful molecular tools for evolutionary inferences. At present, complete chloroplast genomes from over 4000 species have been deposited into publicly accessible databases. Despite the large number of complete chloroplast genomes, comprehensive analyses regarding genome architecture and gene content have not been conducted for many lineages with complete species sampling. In this …