Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Force Measurements On A Flapping And Pitching Wing At Low Reynolds Numbers, Kakkattukuzhy M. Isaac, Anthony Colozza, Jessica Rolwes

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Force measurements from experiments conducted in water on a flapping-and-pitching thin flat plate wing of semi-elliptic planform at low Reynolds numbers are reported. Time varying force data, measured using a force transducer, provide a means to understand the mechanisms that lead to enhanced performance observed in insect flight compared to fixed wing aerodynamics. Experimental uncertainties associated with low level (∼1N) fluid dynamic force measurements on flapping-and-pitching wings are addressed. a previously proposed pitching mode in which the leading edge and trailing edge switch roles to allow using cambered airfoils has been shown to be viable and may have advantages over …

Effects Of Current On Droplet Generation And Arc Plasma In Gas Metal Arc Welding, J. Hu, Hai-Lung Tsai

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In gas metal arc welding (GMAW), a technology using pulsed currents has been employed to achieve the one-droplet-per-pulse (ODPP) metal transfer mode with the advantages of low average currents, a stable and controllable droplet generation, and reduced spatter. In this paper, a comprehensive model was developed to study the effects of different current profiles on the droplet formation, plasma generation, metal transfer, and weld pool dynamics in GMAW. Five types of welding currents were studied, including two constant currents and three wave form currents. In each type, the transient temperature and velocity distributions of the arc plasma and the molten …

Neural Network Approach For Obstacle Avoidance In 3-D Environments For Uavs, Vivek Yadav, Xiaohua Wang, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper a controller design is proposed to get obstacle free trajectories in a three dimensional urban environment for unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). The controller has a two-layer architecture. In the upper layer, vision-inspired Grossberg neural network is proposed to get the shortest distance paths. In the bottom layer, a model predictive control (MPC) based controller is used to obtain dynamically feasible trajectories. Simulation results are presented for to demonstrate the potential of the approach.

Nonlinear Control Concepts For A Ua, Vijayakumar Janardhan, Derek Schmitz, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A reconfigurable flight control method is developed to be implemented on an Unmanned Aircraft (UA), a thirty percent scale model of the Cessna 150. This paper presents the details of the UA platform, system identification, reconfigurable controller design, development, and implementation on the UA to analyze the performance metrics. A Crossbow Inertial Measurement Unit provides the roll, pitch, and yaw accelerations and rates along with the roll and pitch. The 100-400 mini-air data boom from SpaceAge Control provides the airspeed, altitude, angle of attack, and the side slip angles. System identification is accomplished by commanding preprogrammed inputs to the control …

Plasma Modeling For Ultrashort Laser Ablation Of Dielectrics, Lan Jiang, Hai-Lung Tsai

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In ultrashort pulse (<10 ps) laser ablation of dielectrics, affected materials are first transformed into absorbing plasma with metallic properties and, then, the subsequent laser-plasma interaction causes material removals. For ultrashort-pulse laser ablation of dielectrics, this study proposes a model using the Fokker-Planck equation for electron density distribution, a plasma model for the optical properties of ionized dielectrics, and quantum treatments for electron heating and relaxation time. The free electron density distribution of the plasma within the pulse duration is then used to determine the ablation crater shape. The predicted threshold fluences and ablation depths for barium aluminum borosilicate and fused silica are in agreement with published experimental data. It is found that the significantly varying optical properties in time and space are the key factors determining the ablation crater shape. The effects of fluence and pulse duration are also studied.

Statistically Steady Measurements Of Rayleigh-Taylor Mixing In A Gas Channel, Malcolm J. Andrews, Arindam Banerjee

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A novel gas channel experiment is described to study the development of high Atwood number Rayleigh-Taylor mixing. Two gas streams, one containing air and the other containing a helium-air mixture, flow parallel to each other separated by a thin splitter plate. The streams meet at the end of a splitter plate leading to the formation of an unstable interface and of buoyancy driven mixing. This buoyancy driven mixing experiment allows for long data collection times, has short transients, and is statistically steady. The facility was designed to be capable of large Atwood number studies (At~0.75). We describe initial validation work …

An Optimal Dynamic Inversion Approach For Controlling A Class Of One-Dimensional Nonlinear Distributed Parameter Systems, Radhakant Padhi, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Combining the principles of dynamic inversion and optimization theory, a new approach is presented for stable control of a class of one-dimensional nonlinear distributed parameter systems, assuming the availability a continuous actuator in the spatial domain. Unlike the existing approximate-then-design and design-then-approximate techniques, here there is no need of any approximation either of the system dynamics or of the resulting controller. Rather, the control synthesis approach is fairly straight-forward and simple. The controller formulation has more elegance because we can prove the convergence of the controller to its steady state value. To demonstrate the potential of the proposed technique, a …

Dynamic Re-Optimization Of A Spacecraft Attitude Controller In The Presence Of Uncertainties, Nishant Unnikrishnan, S. N. Balakrishnan, Radhakant Padhi

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Online trained neural networks have become popular in recent years in the design of robust and adaptive controllers for dynamic systems with uncertainties due to their universal function approximation capabilities. This paper discusses a technique that dynamically reoptimizes a Single Network Adaptive Critic (SNAC) based optimal controller in the presence of unmodeled plant uncertainties. The SNAC based optimal controller designed for the nominal plant model no more retains optimality in the presence of uncertainties/unmodeled dynamics that may creep up in the system equations during operation. This calls for a strategy to re-optimize the existing SNAC controller with respect to the …

Experimental Simulation Of Lightning Optical Emissions In Clouds, Anil Ogale, Kunal Mitra, Arindam Banerjee

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The objective of the study is to experimentally determine the information content of lightning optical emissions through clouds. Clouds affect the amplitude of lightning signals and the apparent dimensions of the optical source. Multiple scattering from the cloud media also alters the shape of the temporal profile of the lightning signal. The goal is to provide accurate estimates of the arrival time delay and temporal pulse width broadening of output signals emitted from clouds for different cloud and lightning parameters. Experiments conducted in the laboratory yield a temporally broadened pulse with an overall decrease in the peak and a delay …

Magnetically Filtered Faraday Probe For Measuring The Ion Current Density Profile Of A Hall Thruster., Joshua L. Rovey, Mitchell L. R. Walker, Alec D. Gallimore, Peter Y. Peterson

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The ability of a magnetically filtered Faraday probe (MFFP) to obtain the ion current density profile of a Hall thruster is investigated. The MFFP is designed to eliminate the collection of low-energy, charge-exchange (CEX) ions by using a variable magnetic field as an ion filter. In this study, a MFFP, Faraday probe with a reduced acceptance angle (BFP), and nude Faraday probe are used to measure the ion current density profile of a 5 kW Hall thruster operating over the range of 300-500 V and 5-10 mg/s. The probes are evaluated on a xenon propellant Hall thruster in the University …

Neural Network Control Of Spark Ignition Engines With High Egr Levels, A. Singh, Brian C. Kaul, J. A. Drallmeier, Jagannathan Sarangapani, Jonathan B. Vance

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Research has shown substantial reductions in the oxides of nitrogen (NOx) concentrations by using 10% to 25% exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) in spark ignition (SI) engines [1]. However under high EGR levels the engine exhibits strong cyclic dispersion in heat release which may lead to instability and unsatisfactory performance. A suite of neural network (NN)-based output feedback controllers with and without reinforcement learning is developed to control the SI engine at high levels of EGR even when the engine dynamics are unknown by using fuel as the control input. A separate control loop was designed for controlling EGR levels. The …

Neuroadaptive Model Following Controller Design For A Nonaffine Uav Model, Nishant Unnikrishnan, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper proposes a new model-following adaptive control design technique for nonlinear systems that are nonaffine in control. The adaptive controller uses online neural networks that guarantee tracking in the presence of unmodeled dynamics and/or parameter uncertainties present in the system model through an online control adaptation procedure. The controller design is carried out in two steps: (i) synthesis of a set of neural networks which capture the unmodeled (neglected) dynamics or model uncertainties due to parametric variations and (ii) synthesis of a controller that drives the state of the actual plant to that of a reference model. This method …

Optimal Impulse Control Of Systems With Control Constraints And Application To Hiv Treatment, Vivek Yadav, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, conditions for optimal impulse control of an impulsive system with constraints on control are derived. These hold for a system whose states can be changed instantaneously at discrete times with impulses while a continuous control is being applied between those times. The conditions derived are applied to the problem of optimal HIV treatment. Simulation results are presented to show the treatment procedure. The results obtained show that the intervention method developed leads to good results.

Towards Monitoring Galileo: The European Gnss Supervisory Authority In Statu Nascendi = Zur Künftigen Überwachungsagentur Des Galileo Systems, Vers Une Autorité De Surveillance Du Système Galileo, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

There is little doubt that one of the most interesting and revolutionary, but also complicated and challenging space projects of today is Galileo, Europe’s own full-fledged second-generation navigation satellite system. Developed jointly by the European Union through the Commission and the European Space Agency, Galileo should by the end of the decade have thirty operational satellites in middle-earth-orbits providing timing, positioning and navigation signals across the globe.

From the very beginning Galileo was envisaged in particular by the Commission as a public-private-partnership (PPP). On the one hand, a private concessionaire should operate the system as of full operational capability (originally …

Neural Network-Based Output Feedback Controller For Lean Operation Of Spark Ignition Engines, Brian C. Kaul, Jagannathan Sarangapani, J. A. Drallmeier, Jonathan B. Vance, Pingan He

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Spark ignition (SI) engines running at very lean conditions demonstrate significant nonlinear behavior by exhibiting cycle-to-cycle dispersion of heat release even though such operation can significantly reduce NOx emissions and improve fuel efficiency by as much as 5-10%. A suite of neural network (NN) controller without and with reinforcement learning employing output feedback has shown ability to reduce the nonlinear cyclic dispersion observed under lean operating conditions. The neural network controllers consists of three NN: a) A NN observer to estimate the states of the engine such as total fuel and air; b) a second NN for generating virtual input; …