Engineering Commons^™

Uav Cattle Tracker, Shaun Finlinson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Every year cattle ranchers loose millions of dollars to preventable causes or curable illnesses.

The purpose of the UAV Cattle Tracker is to provide cattle ranchers daily cattle health and location monitoring for range cattle, improving overall food production efficiencies and increased profits.

The Application And Accuracy Of Structure From Motion Computer Vision Models With Full-Scale Geotechnical Field Tests, L. Palmer, Kevin W. Franke, R. Abraham Martin, B. E. Sines, Kyle M. Rollins, John Hedengren

Faculty Publications

Structure from motion (SfM) computer vision is a relatively new technology that allows engineers to reconstruct a three-dimensional (3D) model of a given scene using twodimensional digital photographs captured from a single, moving camera. SfM computer vision provides an economic and user-friendly alternative to other 3D scene-capture and modeling tools such as light distance and ranging (LiDAR). Although the resolution and accuracy of laser-based modeling methods are generally superior to vision-based modeling methods, the economic advantages associated with the latter may make it a useful and practical alternative for many geotechnical engineering applications. Although other engineering disciplines have investigated the …

Developments In Lfm-Cw Sar For Uav Operation, Craig Lee Stringham

Theses and Dissertations

Opportunities to use synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in scientific studies and military operations are expanding with the development of small SAR systems that can be operated on small unmanned air vehicles (UAV)s. While the nimble nature of small UAVs make them an attractive platform for many reasons, small UAVs are also more prone to deviate from a linear course due autopilot errors and external forces such as turbulence and wind. Thus, motion compensation and improved processing algorithms are required to properly focus the SAR images. The work of this dissertation overcomes some of the challenges and addresses some of the …

Optimized Photogrammetric Network Design With Flight Path Planner For Uav-Based Terrain Surveillance, Ivan Yair Rojas

Theses and Dissertations

This work demonstrates the use of genetic algorithms as a stochastic optimization technique for developing a camera network design and the flight path for photogrammetricapplications using Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. This study develops a Virtual Optimizer for Aerial Routes (VOAR) as a new photogrammetric mapping tool for acquisition of images to be used in 3D reconstruction. 3D point cloud models provide detailed information on infrastructure from places where human access may be difficult. This algorithm allows optimized flight paths to monitor infrastructure using GPS coordinates and optimized camera poses ensuring that the set of images captured is improved for 3D …

Design And Dynamic Analysis Of A Variable-Sweep, Variable-Span Morphing Uav, Nirmit Prabhakar

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Morphing wings have the potential to optimize UAV performance for a variety of flight conditions and maneuvers. The ability to vary both the wing sweep and span can enable maximum performance for a diverse range of flight regimes. For example, low-speed missions can be optimized using a wing with high aspect ratio and no wing sweep whereas high-speed missions are optimized with low aspect ratio wings and large wing sweep. Different static morphing wing configurations clearly result in varying aerodynamics and, as a result, varying dynamic modes. Another important consideration, however, is the transient dynamics that occur when transitioning between …

Fault Detection For Unmanned Aerial Vehicles With Non-Redundant Sensors, Brandon Jeffrey Cannon

Theses and Dissertations

To operate, autonomous systems of necessity employ a variety of sensors to perceive their environment. Many small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are unable to carry redundant sensors due to size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints. Faults in these sensors can cause undesired behavior, including system instability. Thus, detection of faults in these non-redundant sensors is of paramount importance.The problem of detecting sensor faults in non-redundant sensors on board autonomous aircraft is non-trivial. Factors that make development of a solution difficult include both an inability to perfectly characterize systems and sensors as well as the SWaP constraints inherent with small UAV. …

The Effects Of Rewards On The Ability Of An Autonomous Uav Controlled By A Reinforcement Learning Agent To Accomplish A Target Localization Task, Hemali Dinesh Virani

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The need for Unmanned Aerial System (UASs) is increasing in the fields of science, security, military and others. With an increasing number of challenges faced by mankind the need for system with advance autonomous and intelligent capabilities is growing rapidly. The required intelligent behavior can be achieved in an unmanned system with machine learning methods such as Reinforcement Learning (RL) theory. This theory presents algorithms which have the capability to learn how to adapt to its environment. Using RL methods, autonomous systems have the ability to use past experiences to improve future mission performance. In this research, the effects of …

On Uav Robust Nonlinear Control In Presence Of Parametric Uncertainties, Vladimir V. Golubev, William Mackunis

Publications

We examine a new robust nonlinear flight control technology that employs an array of synthetic-jet micro-actuators embedded in UAV wing design in order to completely eliminate moving parts (such as ailerons) thus greatly enhancing maneuverability required for small fixed-wing air vehicles operating, e.g., in tight urban environments. Estimated fast response times are critical in mitigating gust effects while greatly improving flight stability and control. The new controller design is particularly advantageous for high levels of uncertainty and nonlinearity present both in the unsteady flowpath environment and in the embedded actuator’s response. The current work focuses on a benchmark case of …

Design And Demonstration Of A Two-Dimentional Test Bed For Uav Controller Evaluation, Ran Huang

All Theses

A three degree-of-freedom (DOF) planar test bed for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) controller evaluation was built. The test-bed consists of an instrumented tether and an experimental twin-rotor, planar UAV mounted with a one DOF manipulator mounted below the UAV body. The tether was constructed to constrain the UAV under test to motion on the surface of a sphere. Experiments can be conducted through the tether, approximating motion in a vertical plane by a UAV under test. The tether provides the means to measure the position and attitude of the UAV under test. The experimental twin-rotor UAV and one-link on-board manipulator, …

Feedback Speed Control Of A Small Two-Stroke Internal Combustion Engine That Propels An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Paul D. Fjare

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) require intelligent control of their power source. Small UAV are typically powered by electric motors or small two-stroke internal combustion (IC) engines. Small IC engines allow for longer flight times but are more difficult to control and cause significant ground noise. A hybrid operation that uses the engine at high altitudes and the electric motors at low altitudes is desired. This would allow for extended flight with acceptable ground noise levels. Since the engine can not be restarted in the air it must be able to remain at idle for an extended time without stalling. A …

Invariant Inferring And Monitoring In Robotic Systems, Hengle Jiang

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

System monitoring can help to detect abnormalities and avoid failures. Crafting monitors for today’s robotic systems, however, can be very difficult due to the systems’ inherent complexity and its rich operating environment.

In this work we address this challenge through an approach that automatically infers system invariants and synthesizes those invariants into monitors. This approach is inspired by existing software engineering approaches for automated invariant inference, and it is novel in that it derives invariants by observing the messages passed between system nodes and the invariants types are tailored to match the spatial, time, temporal, and architectural attributes of robotic …

Flight Testing Small Uavs For Aerodynamic Parameter Estimation, Adam Thomas Chase

Master's Theses

A flight data acquisition system was developed to aid unmanned vehicle designers in verifying the vehicle's design performance. The system is reconfigurable and allows the designer to choose the correct combination of complexity, risk, and cost for a given flight test. The designer can also reconfigure the system to meet packaging and integration requirements. System functionality, repeatbility, and accuracy was validated by collecting data during multiple flights of a radio-controlled aircraft. Future work includes sensor fusion, thrust prediction methods, stability and control derivative estimation, and growing Cal Poly's small-scale component aerodynamic database.

Lightweight Uav Launcher, Ben Miller, Christian Valoria, Corinne Warnock, Jake Coutlee

Mechanical Engineering

This report discusses the design, construction, and testing of a lightweight, portable UAV launcher. There is a current need for a small team of soldiers to launch a US Marine Tier II UAV in a remote location without transport. Research was conducted into existing UAV launcher designs and the pros and cons of each were recorded. This research served as a basis for concept generation during the initial design development stage. It was required that the design weigh less than 110 lbs, occupy a smaller volume than 48" x 24" 18" in its collapsed state, be portable by a single …

Using A Uav To Effectively Prolong Wireless Sensor Network Lifetime With Wireless Power Transfer, Jinfu Leng

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Wireless sensor networks are widely used for everything from border security to monitoring waterway pollution. Supplying energy for long term deployment is a main challenge in the applications of wireless sensor networks, as batteries are the primary energy source. Current wireless sensor networks deployed for long periods either require additional infrastructure, such as solar panels, or periodic maintenance. Our research lab has proposed a novel solution that uses a micro unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to wirelessly charge the sensor nodes and prolong the sensor network lifetime. Recent studies have shown that significant power can be transferred wirelessly over medium distances. …

Analysis, Optimization, And Implementation Of A Uav-Based Wireless Power Transfer System, Andrew Mittleider

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Wireless power transfer is rapidly advancing in its ability to efficiently transfer power to a variety of devices.

As the efficiency increases, more applications for these systems arise. Since magnetic resonant wireless power transfer can only transfer a small amount of power, most current applications only focus on powering low-powered devices.

Wireless Sensor Networks are composed of many low-powered nodes which currently require human interaction to remain powered. We propose recharging a low-powered Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) with a magnetic resonant wireless power transfer system attached to a quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

This thesis addresses three main challenges with …

Autonomous Aerial Water Sampling, John-Paul W. Ore

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Obtaining spatially separated, high frequency water samples from rivers and lakes is critical to enhance our understanding and effective management of fresh water resources. In this thesis we present an aerial water sampler and verify the system in field experiments. The aerial water sampler has the potential to vastly increase the speed and range at which scientists obtain water samples while reducing cost and effort. The water sampling system includes: 1) a mechanism to capture three 20 ml samples per mission; 2) sensors and algorithms for safe navigation and altitude approximation over water; and 3) software components that integrate and …

The Relationship Among Hfacs Levels And Analysis Of Human Factors In Unmanned And Manned Air Vehicles, Veysel Yesilbas

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the structural relationships among the Human Factors Accident Classification System levels for unmanned air vehicle and manned air vehicle accidents and the common relationships between unmanned air vehicle and manned air vehicle accident causes. The study acquired DOD HFACS accident classification data from 347 United States Air Force Class A accident reports for the years between 2000 and 2013.

The dissertation utilized a set of analysis that is considered to contribute substantially to the respective domain of the study. The correlations found among categorical levels were applied to HFACS taxonomy based on the Reason Model via path …

Low Speed Re-Fuelling Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using The Drogue System, Ian R. Mcandrew, Elena Navarro

Publications

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are being required to be used in more and more complex situations with larger payloads for extended periods of time. Increasing the expectations and operating ceiling requires increased amounts fuel, that thus limits the potential payloads. This dichotomy has led to the quest for more fuel efficient UAVs; however, when designs are improved then their expectations are increased further. In manned aircraft this can be achieved by in-flight re-fuelling. This research is focused on the process of re-fuelling a UAV at low speeds and the aerodynamics considerations and problems it potentially brings. Practical conclusions to these …

Detection And Control Of Small Civilian Uavs, Matthew Peacock

Theses : Honours

With the increasing proliferation of small civilian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), the threat to critical infrastructure (CI) security and privacy is now widely recognised and must be addressed. These devices are easily available at a low cost, with their usage largely unrestricted allowing users to have no accountability. Further, current implementations of UAVs have little to no security measures applied to their control interfaces. To combat the threat raised by small UAVs, being aware of their presence is required, a task that can be challenging and often requires customised hardware.

This thesis aimed to address the threats posed by the …

Analysis Of A Fuel Cell Combustor In A Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Hybrid Gas Turbine Power System For Aerospace Application, Ryan R. Sinnamon

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Over the last few years, fuel cell technology has significantly advanced and has become a mode of clean power generation for many engineering applications. Currently the dominant application for fuel cell technology is with stationary power generation. Very little has been published for applications on mobile platforms, such as unmanned aerial vehicles. With unmanned aerial vehicles being used more frequently for national defense and reconnaissance, there is a need for a more efficiency, longer endurance power system that can support the increased electrical loads onboard. It has already been proven by others that fuel cell gas turbine hybrid systems can …

Proposed Middleware Solution For Resource-Constrained Distributed Embedded Networks, Jason T. Rexroat

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

The explosion in processing power of embedded systems has enabled distributed embedded networks to perform more complicated tasks. Middleware are sets of encapsulations of common and network/operating system-specific functionality into generic, reusable frameworks to manage such distributed networks. This thesis will survey and categorize popular middleware implementations into three adapted layers: host-infrastructure, distribution, and common services. This thesis will then apply a quantitative approach to grading and proposing a single middleware solution from all layers for two target platforms: CubeSats and autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). CubeSats are 10x10x10cm nanosatellites that are popular university-level space missions, and impose power and …

Computational Investigation Of Rotary Engine Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition Feasibility, Michael Irvin Resor

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has been investigating the heavy fuel conversion of small scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). One particular platform is the Army Shadow 200, powered by a UEL Wankel rotary engine. The rotary engine historically is a proven multi-fuel capable engine when operating on spark ignition however, little research into advanced more efficient compression concepts have been investigated. A computational fluid dynamics model has been created to investigate the feasibility of a Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) rotary engine. This research evaluates the effects, rotor radius to crankshaft eccentricity ratio, known as K factor, equivalence ratio, …

Cooperative Target Tracking Enhanced With The Sequence Memoizer, Everett A. Bryan

Theses and Dissertations

Target tracking is an important part of video surveillance from a UAV. Tracking a target in an urban environment can be difficult because of the number of occlusions present in the environment. If multiple UAVs are used to track a target and the target behavior is learned autonomously by the UAV then the task may become easier. This thesis explores the hypothesis that an existing cooperative control algorithm can be enhanced by a language modeling algorithm to improve over time the target tracking performance of one or more ground targets in a dense urban environment. Observations of target behavior are …

A Coordinated Sensing Algorithm For An Ad-Hoc Sensing Network, Britton Quist, Dr. Lee Swindlehurst

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Sensor deployment and placement has a myriad of applications. In everything from wildlife monitoring to underwater microphone surveillance to UAV (unmanned air vehicle) battlefield surveillance the placement of sensors is essential for proper coverage. Often these devices (nodes) communicate as an Ad-Hoc network where data sent to a distant sensor or node will be conveyed across the network by the nodes along the way. In this way, if a node is within the communication range of a single node with other connections, it can communicate with an entire network. This approach is an alternative to the network used in applications …

Terrain Following In Unmanned Air Vehicles Using Optic Flow Sensors, Blake Barber, Dr. Tim Mclain

Journal of Undergraduate Research

A key enabling technology that will allow the U.S. Military to maintain information superiority in the 21st century is the development and implementation of Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) technology. Especially critical to the support of the small special operations units conducting the asymmetric warfare of the 21st century will be the development of mini and micro UAV technology. Mini and micro UAV technology will enable foot soldiers to hand launch and recover small, robust reconnaissance aircraft capable of providing real-time video surveillance and real-time target acquisition. These capabilities will allow soldiers to have the full situational awareness they need for …

Real-Time Path Planning For Unmanned Air Vehicles, Andrew Curtis, Dr. Randal Beard

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) have become an important research topic in recent years. Military and civilian groups desire to use UAVs for several purposes, including surveillance, search and rescue, communications relays, and warfare. In the MAGICC Lab at BYU, we are researching low-cost methods of using miniature UAVs (wingspan of less than 2 meters) for these applications. We have developed a small autopilot to fly these UAVs and are able to give them commands by wireless communication from a laptop that is used as a ground station. With this research platform, we are able to easily test our methods and …

Small Uavs For Perch And Stare Missions: Ground Locomotion And Self-Launch, Stephen Carlson, Dr. Jerry Bowman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The mission of this project was the development of an Unmanned Air Vehicle capable of complete autonomy in a terrestrial environment. Using a jumping system for zero-distance take-offs and the addition of ground locomotion devices and energy harvesting systems, the vehicle could operate indefinitely without human assistance. Although this aircraft is unfinished, it and later design attempts have been tested to satisfy the basic fundamentals of this mission. The project will be continued until the stated mission objectives are achieved.

Autonomous Soaring Using Real-Time Wind Estimation, Mark J. Cutler, Dr. Timothy Mclain

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are obtaining increasing utilization in many applications. Their small size (0.5-4m wingspan) allows them to fly close to the ground, providing useful observation and tracking data. This small size, however, comes at the expense of flight time. As UAV size decreases, the amount of stored energy (electrical or chemical) the UAV is able to carry also decreases. If long flight times are to be obtained with a small UAV, other energy sources must be exploited. Naturally occurring atmospheric phenomena provide one such potential energy source.

Vision-Based Guidance For Air-To-Air Tracking And Rendezvous Of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Joseph Walter Nichols

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops the visual pursuit method for air-to-air tracking and rendezvous of unmanned aircraft systems. It also shows the development of vector-field and proportional-integral methods for controlling UAS flight in formation with other aircraft. The visual pursuit method is a nonlinear guidance method that uses vision-based line of sight angles as inputs to the algorithm that produces pitch rate, bank angle and airspeed commands for the autopilot to use in aircraft control. The method is shown to be convergent about the center of the camera image frame and to be stable in the sense of Lyapunov. In the lateral …

Development Of A Sense And Avoid System For Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Robert Andrew Klaus

Theses and Dissertations

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) represent the future of modern aviation. Over the past 10 years their use abroad by the military has become commonplace for surveillance and combat. Unfortunately, their use at home has been far more restrictive. Due to safety and regulatory concerns, UAS are prohibited from flying in the National Airspace System without special authorization from the FAA. One main reason for this is the lack of an on-board pilot to "see and avoid" other air traffic and thereby maintain the safety of the skies. Development of a comparable capability, known as "Sense and Avoid" (SAA), has therefore …