Engineering Commons^™

Design And Implementation Of Intelligent Guidance Algorithms For Uav Mission Protection, Karina Rivera

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

In recent years, the interest of investigating intelligent systems for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have increased in popularity due to their large range of capabilities such as on-line obstacle avoidance, autonomy, search and rescue, fast prototyping and integration in the National Air Space (NAS). Many research efforts currently focus on system robustness against uncertainties but do not consider the probability of readjusting tasks based on the remaining resources to successfully complete the mission. In this thesis, an intelligent algorithm approach is proposed along with decision-making capabilities to enhance UAVs post-failure performance. This intelligent algorithm integrates a set of path planning …

Dynamic Optimization Of High-Altitude Solar Aircraft Trajectories Under Station-Keeping Constraints, Ronald Abraham Martin, Nathaniel Gates, Andrew Ning, John Hedengren

Faculty Publications

This paper demonstrates the use of nonlinear dynamic optimization to calculate energy optimal trajectories for a high-altitude, solar-powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The objective is to maximize the total energy in the system while staying within a 3 km mission radius and meeting other system constraints. Solar energy capture is modeled using the vehicle orientation and solar position, and energy is stored both in batteries and in potential energy through elevation gain. Energy capture is maximized by optimally adjusting the angle of the aircraft surface relative to the sun. The UAV flight and energy system dynamics are optimized over a …

Dynamic Optimization Of High-Altitude Solar Aircraft Trajectories Under Station-Keeping Constraints, R. Abraham Martin, Nathaniel S. Gates, Andrew Ning, John Hedengren

Faculty Publications

This paper demonstrates the use of nonlinear dynamic optimization to calculate energy-optimal trajectories for a high-altitude, solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The objective is to maximize the total energy in the system while staying within a 3 km mission radius and meeting other system constraints. Solar energy capture is modeled using the vehicle orientation and solar position, and energy is stored both in batteries and in potential energy through elevation gain. Energy capture is maximized by optimally adjusting the angle of the aircraft surface relative to the sun. The UAV flight and energy system dynamics are optimized over a 24 …

Direct Adaptive Control For A Trajectory Tracking Uav, Nirmit Prabhakar

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This research focuses on the theoretical development and analysis of a direct adaptive control algorithm to enable a fixed-wing UAV to track reference trajectories while in the presence of persistent external disturbances. A typical application of this work is autonomous flight through urban environments, where reference trajectories would be provided by a path planning algorithm and the vehicle would be subjected to significant wind gust disturbances. Full 6-DOF nonlinear and linear UAV simulation models are developed and used to study the performance of the direct adaptive control system for various scenarios. A stability proof is developed to prove convergence of …

Dynamic Optimization Of High-Altitude Solar Aircraft Trajectories Under Station-Keeping Constraints, Abraham Martin, Nathaniel Gates, Andrew Ning, John Hedengren

Faculty Publications

This paper demonstrates the use of nonlinear dynamic optimization to calculate energy- optimal trajectories for a high-altitude, solar-powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The objective is to maximize the total energy in the system while staying within a 3 km mission radius and meeting other system constraints. Solar energy capture is modeled using the vehicle orientation and solar position, and energy is stored both in batteries and in potential energy through elevation gain. Energy capture is maximized by optimally adjusting the angle of the aircraft surface relative to the sun. The UAV flight and energy system dynamics are optimized over a …

Aircraft On Demand | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

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Evaluation Of Tseb Turbulent Fluxes Using Different Methods For The Retrieval Of Soil And Canopy Component Temperatures From Uav Thermal And Multispectral Imagery, Héctor Nieto, William P. Kustas, Alfonso F. Torres-Rúa, Joseph G. Alfieri, Feng Gao, Martha C. Anderson, W. Alex White, Lisheng Song, María Del Mar Alsina, John H. Prueger, Mac Mckee, Manal Elarab, Lynn G. Mckee

AggieAir Publications

The thermal-based Two-Source Energy Balance (TSEB) model partitions the evapotranspiration (ET) and energy fluxes from vegetation and soil components providing the capability for estimating soil evaporation (E) and canopy transpiration (T). However, it is crucial for ET partitioning to retrieve reliable estimates of canopy and soil temperatures and net radiation, as the latter determines the available energy for water and heat exchange from soil and canopy sources. These two factors become especially relevant in row crops with wide spacing and strongly clumped vegetation such as vineyards and orchards. To better understand these effects, very high spatial resolution remote-sensing data from …

An Experimental Comparison Of Student Motivation Between Two Computational Thinking-Based Stem Activities: Vex-Based Automation And Robotics And A Quadcopter Activity, Cory J. Ortiz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to compare student motivation between two junior high level computational thinking based STEM curricular activities. These two activities were a newly developed quadcopter based curriculum and a VEX based curricular activity developed for Project Lead the Way’s Gateway to Technology – Automation and Robotics course. Student motivation was assessed using an assessment called My Class Activities which broke motivation into four constructs: interest, challenge, choice, and enjoyment.

This study assessed students in three schools in a northern Utah school district. Students were assessed after receiving each curriculum. Assessment responses were then coded and analyzed. …

Experiments Of Propeller-Induced Flow Effects On A Low-Reynolds-Number Wing, Gavin K. Ananda, Robert Deters, Michael S. Selig

Publications

Novel findings are discussed in this paper that will be especially beneficial to designers and modelers of small-scale unmanned air vehicles and high-altitude long-endurance vehicles that both operate at low Reynolds numbers (Re = 50,000-300,000). Propeller-induced Oow effects in both tractor and pusher configurations on a recta ngular wing using the Wortmann FX 63-137 airfoil (a common low-Reynolds-number high-lift airfoil) are presented in this paper . Significant performance benefits can be found for a wing in the tractor configuration. Experiments, including trip tests and upper-surface oil Dow visualization, show and verify that the propeller slipstream induces early transition to turbulent …

Field Validation Of An Advanced Autonomous Method Of Exterior Dam Inspection Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Benjamin Joseph Barrett

Theses and Dissertations

The maintenance of infrastructure is critical to the well-being of society. This work focuses on a novel method for inspecting the exterior of dams using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in an automated fashion. The UAVs are equipped with optical sensors capturing still images. The resulting images are used to generate three-dimensional (3D) models using Structure from Motion (SfM) computer software. The SfM models are then used to inspect the exterior of the dam. As typical dam inspections entail completing a checklist of inspection items with varied degrees of precision (e.g. a concrete spillway may be finely inspected for cracking or …

Implementation Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uavs) For Assessment Of Transportation Infrastructure - Phase Ii, Colin Brooks, Richard Dobson, David Banach, Thomas Oommen, Kuilin Zhang, Amlan Mukherjee, Timothy C. Havens, Theresa Ahlborn, Rudiger Escobar-Wolf, Chaitanya Ganesh Bhat, S. Zhao, Q. Lyu, Nicholas Marion

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Technological advances in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies continue to enable these tools to become easier to use, more economical, and applicable for transportation-related operations, maintenance, and asset management while also increasing safety and decreasing cost. This Phase 2 project continued to test and evaluate five main UAV platforms with a combination of optical, thermal, and lidar sensors to determine how to implement them into MDOT workflows. Field demonstrations were completed at bridges, a construction site, road corridors, and along highways with data being processed and analyzed using customized algorithms and tools. Additionally, a cost-benefit analysis was conducted, comparing manual …

Range Information Characterization Of The Hokuyo Ust-20lx Lidar Sensor, Matthew A. Cooper, John F. Raquet, Rick Patton

Faculty Publications

This paper presents a study on the data measurements that the Hokuyo UST-20LX Laser Rangefinder produces, which compiles into an overall characterization of the LiDAR sensor relative to indoor environments. The range measurements, beam divergence, angular resolution, error effect due to some common painted and wooden surfaces, and the error due to target surface orientation are analyzed. It was shown that using a statistical average of sensor measurements provides a more accurate range measurement. It was also shown that the major source of errors for the Hokuyo UST-20LX sensor was caused by something that will be referred to as “mixed …

Design Optimization And Control Of A Fully Actuated Hexrotor Uav For Use In Aerial Manipulation Applications, Jameson Yau Sung Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This work addresses the issue of controller complexity in the application of a special class of multirotor in aerial manipulation tasks. Much of the current research concerning aerial manipulation involves the modeling and control of highly coupled multirotor and manipulator systems. This is a consequence of the platform’s under-actuation condition. To accommodate the rejection of arbitrary wrench disturbances brought about by the environment, multirotor must perform deliberate attitude tracking to affect forward and lateral maneuvers mid-flight. The manipulator end-effector tracking is highly affected by this, thus, their performance in general aerial manipulation is limited. To address these limitations, a special …

Trust Based Time-Varying Network Topology For Distributed Co-Operative Control Of Multi-Class Multi-Agent Systems, Ankur Vipulkumar Dalal

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

With increased levels of autonomy in most of the engineering fields and booms in areas such as swarms, platoons and Internet of Things (IoT), communication and information flow has become a highly researched field. With advancements in autonomous vehicles (AVs) and drones in armed warfare, more and more focus is being laid on intercommunication between these vehicles and its surroundings as well as intra-communication among the fleets/swarms itself. It is easier to deal with individual agents whereas it is quite challenging to deal with multi-agent systems especially with highly dynamic agents. In this thesis, we propose a general protocol for …

Homography-Based State Estimation For Autonomous Exploration In Unknown Environments, Andres S. Chavez Armijos

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis presents the development of vision-based state estimation algorithms to enable a quadcopter UAV to navigate and explore a previously unknown GPS denied environment. These state estimation algorithms are based on tracked Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF) points and the homography relationship that relates the camera motion to the locations of tracked planar feature points in the image plane. An extended Kalman filter implementation is developed to perform sensor fusion using measurements from an onboard inertial measurement unit (accelerometers and rate gyros) with vision-based measurements derived from the homography relationship. Therefore, the measurement update in the filter requires the processing …

Uav-Based Geotechnical Modeling And Mapping Of An Inaccessible Underground Site, Elizabeth Anne Russell

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Digital photogrammetry is becoming a more common method used for mapping geological and structural rock mass features in underground mining. The issue of capturing geological and structural data in inaccessible, unsupported areas of mines remains even when utilizing terrestrial photogrammetric methods; thus, geotechnical models of mines are left with incomplete datasets. Large unsupported underground voids, like stopes, have the potential to cause major failures, but by filling in the geotechnical data gaps in inaccessible areas, potential failures can be predicted through kinematic analysis of the area’s mapped discontinuities. Implementation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in underground mines and recent advances …

Design And Implementation Of An Artificial Neural Network Controller For Quadrotor Flight In Confined Environment, Ahmed Mekky

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Quadrotors offer practical solutions for many applications, such as emergency rescue, surveillance, military operations, videography and many more. For this reason, they have recently attracted the attention of research and industry. Even though they have been intensively studied, quadrotors still suffer from some challenges that limit their use, such as trajectory measurement, attitude estimation, obstacle avoidance, safety precautions, and land cybersecurity. One major problem is flying in a confined environment, such as closed buildings and tunnels, where the aerodynamics around the quadrotor are affected by close proximity objects, which result in tracking performance deterioration, and sometimes instability. To address this …

Stabilized Rpa Flight In Building Proximity Operations, Michael M. Kaniut

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis seeks a solution to the requirement for a highly reliable and capable Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) to support a wide array of missions and applications that require close proximity flight to structures. The scope of the project includes the drafting of a concept of operations (CONOPs) describing how the mission requirements might be met using the sensor, operators, and air vehicle described here in. The demonstration of the wall-following section of that CONOPs is performed by cart testing a custom algorithm and evaluating its ability to react to its environment. Finally, a flight test was performed to characterize …

Military Application Of Aerial Photogrammetry Mapping Assisted By Small Unmanned Air Vehicles, Kijun Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigated the practical military applications of the photogrammetric methods using remote sensing assisted by small unmanned aerial vehicles (SUAVs). The research explored the feasibility of UAV aerial mapping in terms of the specific military purposes, focusing on the geolocational and measurement accuracy of the digital models, and image processing time. The research method involved experimental flight tests using low-cost Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, sensors and image processing tools to study key features of the method required in military like location accuracy, time estimation, and measurement capability. Based on the results of the data analysis, two military applications are …

Design And Test Of A Uav Swarm Architecture Over A Mesh Ad-Hoc Network, Timothy J. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop a testable swarm architecture such that the swarm of UAVs collaborate as a team rather than acting as several independent vehicles. Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components were used as they were low-cost, readily available, and previously proven to work with at least two networked UAVs. Initial testing was performed via software-in-the-loop (SITL) demonstrating swarming of three simulated multirotor aircraft, then transitioned to real hardware. The architecture was then tested in an outdoor nylon netting enclosure. Command and control (C2) was provided by software implementing an enhanced version of Reynolds’ flocking rules via an onboard …

Nonlinear Control Framework For Gimbal And Multirotor In Target Tracking, Jae Hun Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents some existing gimbal and UAV control algorithms as well as novel algorithms developed as the extensions of the existing ones. The existing image-based visual servoing algorithms for both gimbal and UAV require the depth information to the object of interest. The depth information is not measurable when only a monocular camera is used for tracking. This thesis is the result of contemplation to the question: how can the necessity for a depth measurement be removed? A novel gimbal algorithm using adaptive control is developed and presented with simulation and hardware results. Although the estimated depth using the …

Unmanned Aerial Systems: Research, Development, Education & Training At Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Michael P. Hickey

Publications

With technological breakthroughs in miniaturized aircraft-related components, including but not limited to communications, computer systems and sensors, state-of-the-art unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have become a reality. This fast-growing industry is anticipating and responding to a myriad of societal applications that will provide new and more cost-effective solutions that previous technologies could not, or will replace activities that involved humans in flight with associated risks.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has a long history of aviation-related research and education, and is heavily engaged in UAS activities. This document provides a summary of these activities, and is divided into two parts. The first part …

Ten Years Of The Real World Design Challenge, Robert W. Deters, Brent Terwilliger, S.C. Kleinke, Ralph K. Coppola, Jeff Coppola

Publications

Preparing students to be successful in STEM careers is important to foster continued growth in the US and the world. The Real World Design Challenge is a high school design competition focused on the area of aviation. Students work in teams to solve a real world problem using professional tools. The 2018 challenge marks the tenth anniversary of this program. The first students to compete in this competition are now in the work force. This paper describes the background of RWDC, the different challenges that have been used throughout its ten years, the current precision agriculture challenges using UAS, and …

Implementation Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Reporting Plume Cloud Concentration Values In A 3d Simulation Environment, Emily Catherine Novak

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, have the potential to vastly improve plume cloud tracking at low cost. Plume clouds can be produced from blast mining, chemical warfare, unintended man-made disasters, and natural causes. This thesis provides implementation of the capability to simulate a 3D environment in which UAVs are individually controlled and each report a plume's concentration value at a specific location. It leverages existing industry standard technologies, including the PX4 autopilot system, the Gazebo simulation environment, the Robot Operating System (ROS), and QGroundControl. The provided system integrates the existing tools with a plume model plug-in that provides simulated plume …

Force-Canceling Mixer Algorithm For Vehicles With Fully-Articulated Radially Symmetric Thruster Arrays, Joseph Nicholas Casabona

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A new type of fully-holonomic aerial vehicle is identified and developed that can optionally utilize automatic cancellation of excessive thruster forces to maintain precise control despite little or no throttle authority. After defining the physical attributes of the new vehicle, a flight control mixer algorithm is defined and presented. This mixer is an input/output abstraction that grants a flight control system (or pilot) full authority of the vehicle's position and orientation by means of an input translation vector and input torque vector. The mixer is shown to be general with respect to the number of thrusters in the system provided …

A Novel Approach For Missing Combat Support Aircraft Search Acceleration Using Vtol Uas, Mohammed Ba Zuhair, Wisam Yousef, Issam Samara, Vladislav Varsegov

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

In this paper, an approach to accelerate search operations for a missing combat support aircraft using a portable waterproof autonomous vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial system called “flying locator beacon” is described. The latter is connected with both flight data and cockpit voice recorders with a parallel bus and may be deployed from the empennage during extreme emergency scenarios, which is detected when few flight parameters are overrun leading to an air crash stimulating behavior. Landing of the flying locator beacon strictly takes place on global latitude and longitude coordinates only of integer values enabling significant minimization of search …

Overwhelming The Saa System Of Delivery Uavs By Drone Swarming, Barry Lynn Pfaff

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

As the Internet continues to replace the brick-and-mortar store as the main place for purchasing goods, web-based companies are looking for ways to reduce the cost of delivering those goods. The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs, is one delivery method that is increasingly being used. These UAVs can be programmed with delivery routes and destinations and can complete the job while requiring limited intervention from human controllers. Sense and Avoidance (SAA) systems have recently been incorporated into these UAVs so that they can detect objects in their flight path, reroute the UAV accordingly and operate even more autonomously. …

Autonomous Uav Battery Swapping, Reed Jacobsen, Nikolai Ruhe, Nathan Dornback

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

One of the main hindrances of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology are power constraints. One way to alleviate some power constraints would be for two UAVs to exchange batteries while both are in flight. Autonomous mid-air battery swapping will expand the scope of UAV technology by allowing for indefinite flight times and longer missions. A single board computer will control each UAV’s flight software to respond to inputs to align with each other mid-flight. When the two UAVs have joined, mechanical components will exchange a depleted battery on the worker UAV for a freshly charged battery that belongs to the …

Rapeseed Seedling Stand Counting And Seeding Performance Evaluation At Two Early Growth Stages Based On Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Imagery, Biquan Zhao, Jian Zhang, Chenghai Yang, Guangsheng Zhou, Youchun Ding, Yeyin Shi, Dongyan Zhang, Jing Xie, Qingxi Liao

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and image processing algorithms for field-based phenotyping offers a non-invasive and effective technology to obtain plant growth traits such as canopy cover and plant height in fields. Crop seedling stand count in early growth stages is important not only for determining plant emergence, but also for planning other related agronomic practices. The main objective of this research was to develop practical and rapid remote sensing methods for early growth stage stand counting to evaluate mechanically seeded rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) seedlings. Rapeseed was seeded in a field by three different seeding devices. A …

Locating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uavs), Ali Ghubaish

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Despite the popularity and usefulness of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones, they are not allowed to fly in some areas without prior permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). However, many incidents of UAVs breaching such restrictions have been reported. A UAV location system can help the law enforcement to be alerted and can prevent UAVs breaching any restricted area without permission. This master thesis proposes a UAV location system where each UAV has a unique identification tag. The method consists of two stages: distance and location estimation. We compared distance estimation using three different methods: Time of Arrival …