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Full-Text Articles in Aeronautical Vehicles

A Decoupled Engineering Methodology For Accurate Prediction Of Ablative Surface Boundary Conditions In Thermal Protection Systems, Justin Cooper Jan 2022

A Decoupled Engineering Methodology For Accurate Prediction Of Ablative Surface Boundary Conditions In Thermal Protection Systems, Justin Cooper

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The main objective of the present work is to demonstrate a method for prediction of aerothermal environments in the engineering design of hypersonic vehicles as an alternative to the current heritage method. Flat plate and stagnation point boundary layer theory require multiple assumptions to establish the current engineering paradigm. Chief among these assumptions is the similarity between mass and heat transfer. Origins of these assumptions are demonstrated and their relationship to conservative engineering design is analyzed, as well as conditions where they possibly break down. An alternative approach for assessing aerothermal environments from the fluid domain is presented, which permits …


Measurements Of Wind Turbine Wake Evolution And Trajectory During Morning Boundary Layer Transition And Under Wake Steering Conditions Via Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Stewart Nelson Jan 2021

Measurements Of Wind Turbine Wake Evolution And Trajectory During Morning Boundary Layer Transition And Under Wake Steering Conditions Via Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Stewart Nelson

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

In July of 2019, a flight campaign was conducted using semi-autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) at the Port Alma Kruger Energy wind farm in Ontario, Canada, to study various aspects of wind turbine wake evolution. Horizontal transects across the wakes were measured using modified fixed-wing aircraft fitted with a five-hole probe to measure the wind velocity vector. Reference boundary layer conditions were measured by an octocopter with an assortment of mounted sensors flying vertical profiles upstream of the turbines. Three experiments were conducted during the campaign, which consisted of a study on wake behavior during the morning boundary layer transition, …


Autonomous Quadrotor Collision Avoidance And Destination Seeking In A Gps-Denied Environment, Thomas C. Kirven Jan 2017

Autonomous Quadrotor Collision Avoidance And Destination Seeking In A Gps-Denied Environment, Thomas C. Kirven

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

This thesis presents a real-time autonomous guidance and control method for a quadrotor in a GPS-denied environment. The quadrotor autonomously seeks a destination while it avoids obstacles whose shape and position are initially unknown. We implement the obstacle avoidance and destination seeking methods using off-the-shelf sensors, including a vision-sensing camera. The vision-sensing camera detects the positions of points on the surface of obstacles. We use this obstacle position data and a potential-field method to generate velocity commands. We present a backstepping controller that uses the velocity commands to generate the quadrotor's control inputs. In indoor experiments, we demonstrate that the …


Comparisons Of Ablator Experimental Performance To Response Modeling And Effects Of Water Phase Transition In Porous Tps Materials, David L. Smith Jan 2016

Comparisons Of Ablator Experimental Performance To Response Modeling And Effects Of Water Phase Transition In Porous Tps Materials, David L. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The Mars Science Laboratory Entry Descent and Landing Instrumentation (MEDLI) project performed extensive arc jet tests for development, qualification, and calibration of instrumented heat shield plugs. These plugs each contained several thermocouples for recording near-surface and in-depth temperature response of the Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) heat shield. The arc jet test results are entered into a comprehensive database so that broad trends across the test series can be compared. One method of analysis is to compare with ablator material response calculations and solve the in-depth heat conduction equations. Using the near-surface thermocouple measurements as a boundary condition in numerical …


Filtered-Dynamic-Inversion Control For Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Systems, Jon Mullen Jan 2014

Filtered-Dynamic-Inversion Control For Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Systems, Jon Mullen

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Instrumented umanned aerial vehicles represent a new way of measuring turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer. However, autonomous measurements require control methods with disturbance-rejection and altitude command-following capabilities. Filtered dynamic inversion is a control method with desirable disturbance-rejection and command-following properties, and this controller requires limited model information. We implement filtered dynamic inversion as the pitch controller in an altitude-hold autopilot. We design and numerically simulate the continuous-time and discrete-time filtered-dynamic-inversion controllers with anti-windup on a nonlinear aircraft model. Finally, we present results from a flight experiment comparing the filtered-dynamic-inversion controller to a classical proportional-integral controller. The experimental results show …


Design And Flight Testing Of A Warping Wing For Autonomous Flight Control, Edward Brady Doepke Jan 2012

Design And Flight Testing Of A Warping Wing For Autonomous Flight Control, Edward Brady Doepke

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Inflatable-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have the ability to be packed in a fraction of their deployed volume. This makes them ideal for many deployable UAV designs, but inflatable wings can be flexible and don’t have conventional control surfaces. This thesis will investigate the use of wing warping as a means of autonomous control for inflatable wings. Due to complexities associated with manufacturing inflatable structures a new method of rapid prototyping deformable wings is used in place of inflatables to decrease cost and design-cycle time. A UAV testbed was developed and integrated with the warping wings and flown in a …


Aerodynamics And Control Of A Deployable Wing Uav For Autonomous Flight, Michael Thamann Jan 2012

Aerodynamics And Control Of A Deployable Wing Uav For Autonomous Flight, Michael Thamann

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

UAV development and usage has increased dramatically in the last 15 years. In this time frame the potential has been realized for deployable UAVs to the extent that a new class of UAV was defined for these systems. Inflatable wing UAVs provide a unique solution for deployable UAVs because they are highly packable (some collapsing to 5-10% of their deployed volume) and have the potential for the incorporation of wing shaping. In this thesis, aerodynamic coefficients and aileron effectiveness were derived from the equations of motion of aircraft as necessary parameters for autonomous flight. A wind tunnel experiment was performed …