Navigation, Guidance, Control, and Dynamics Commons^™

Assessing The Competing Characteristics Of Privacy And Safety Within Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks, Jacob W. Connors

Theses and Dissertations

The introduction of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication has the promise of decreasing vehicle collisions, congestion, and emissions. However, this technology places safety and privacy at odds; an increase of safety applications will likely result in the decrease of consumer privacy. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed the Security Credential Management System (SCMS) as the back end infrastructure for maintaining, distributing, and revoking vehicle certificates attached to every Basic Safety Message (BSM). This Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) scheme is designed around the philosophy of maintaining user privacy through the separation of functions to prevent any one subcomponent from identifying …

Vehicle-To-Barrier Communication During Real-World Vehicle Crash Tests, Samil Temel, Mehmet C. Vuran, Mohammad M.R. Lunar, Zhongyuan Zhao, Abdul Salam, Ronald K. Faller, Cody S. Stolle

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Vehicle-to-barrier (V2B) communication is expected to facilitate wireless interactions between vehicles and roadside barriers in next-generation intelligent transportation systems. V2B systems will help mitigate single-vehicle, run-off-road crashes, which account for more than 50% of roadside crash fatalities. In this work, the characteristics of the wireless channel prior to and during a crash are analyzed using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) techniques, which has been used in existing vehicular communication systems. More specifically, the performance of OFDM-based V2B links are measured in real-world crash tests for the first time. Three crash tests conducted at the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, Lincoln, Nebraska, …

Crop Height Estimation With Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Carrick Detweiler, David Anthony, Sebastian Elbaum

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can be configured for crop height estimation. In some examples, the UAV includes an aerial propulsion system, a laser scanner configured to face downwards while the UAV is in flight, and a control system. The laser scanner is configured to scan through a two-dimensional scan angle and is characterized by a maxi mum range. The control system causes the UAV to fly over an agricultural field and maintain, using the aerial propulsion system and the laser scanner, a distance between the UAV and a top of crops in the agricultural field to within a programmed …

An Empirical Study To Investigate The Effect Of Air Density Changes On The Dsrc Performance, Mostafa El-Said, Vijay Bhuse, Alexander Arendsen

Peer-Reviewed Publications

The primary role of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) system is to implement Advanced Driver Assistance Services (ADAS) such as pedestrian detection, fog detection and collisions avoidance. These services rely on detecting and communicating the environment conditions such as heavy rain or snow with nearby vehicles to improve the driver's visibility. ITS systems rely on DSRC to communicate this information via a Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) or Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications architectures. DSCR performance may be susceptible to environmental changes such as air density, gravitation (gravitational acceleration), air temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, and precipitation.

The goal of this research is to investigate whether the …

Dynamic Understeer Control Using Active Rear Toe, Mark Oliver Dixon Kaufman

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis was conducted to show the ability of Active Rear Toe to control the understeer characteristics of a vehicle. Active rear toe is the ability to control the angle of the rear wheels around the vertical axis, allowing the car’s turning radius to change. By changing this radius, the lateral acceleration can be controlled, therefore the understeer of the vehicle can be controlled. The controls scheme is a sliding mode control, specifically a hyperbolic tangent boundary layer and a type 1 zeno controller. The system shows effectiveness to control the understeer of the vehicle up until limit grip on …

Utilizing Ground-Based Lidar Measurements To Aid Autonomous Airdrop Systems, Martin Cacan, Edward Scheuermann, Michael Ward, Mark Costello, Nathan Slegers

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

Uncertainty in atmospheric winds represents one of the primary sources of landing error in airdrop systems. In this work, a ground-based LIDAR system samples the wind field at discrete points above the target and transmits real-time data to approaching autonomous airdrop systems. In simulation and experimentation, the inclusion of a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system showed a maximum of 40% improvement over unaided autonomous airdrop systems. Wind information nearest ground level has the largest impact on improving accuracy.

Development Of A Test Level 3 Transition Between Guardrail And Portable Concrete Barriers, Robert W. Bielenberg, David Gutierrez, Ronald K. Faller, John D. Reid, Phil Tenhulzen

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Road construction often requires that work zones be created and shielded by portable concrete barriers (PCBs) to protect workers and equipment from errant vehicles as well as to prevent motorists from striking other roadside hazards. For an existing W-beam guardrail system installed adjacent to the roadway and near the work zone, guardrail sections are removed so a PCB system can be placed. A study was done to develop a crashworthy transition between W-beam guardrail and PCB systems. Design concepts were developed and refined through computer simulation with LS-DYNA. Additionally, a study of critical impact points was conducted to determine impact …

Calibrating The Robertson’S Platoon Dispersion Model On A Coordinated Corridor With Advance Warning Flashers, Zhao Li, Laurence Rilett, Ernest Tufuor

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Platoon dispersion (PD) is the foundation of traffic signal coordination in an urban traffic network. PD describes the phenomenon by which vehicles depart from an upstream intersection as a platoon and begin to disperse before they arrive at the downstream intersection. Recently, advance warning flashers (AWFs) have been applied in many high-speed corridors. There is a need to update the traditional PD model to include the effect of AWFs. This paper examines the traffic flow dispersion patterns when an AWF is present and tests the hypothesis that the AWF will affect PD on a coordinated signal corridor. Platoon vehicles, which …

Traction And Launch Control For A Rear-Wheel-Drive Parallel-Series Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle, Adam Michael Szechy

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Hybrid vehicles are becoming the future of automobiles leading into the all-electric generation of vehicles. Electric vehicles come with a great increase in torque at lower RPM resulting in the issue of transferring this torque to the ground effectively. In this thesis, a method is presented for limiting wheel slip and targeting the ideal slip ratio for dry asphalt and low friction surfaces at every given time step. A launch control system is developed to further reduce wheel slip on initial acceleration from standstill furthering acceleration rates to sixty miles per hour. A MATLAB Simulink model was built of the …

Application Of Uav In Maritime Search And Rescue Activities, Xiaojie Wang

Maritime Safety & Environment Management Dissertations (Dalian)

No abstract provided.

Coded Aperture Aided Navigation And Geolocation Systems, Jamie R. Morrison, John F. Raquet, Michael J. Veth

AFIT Patents

A micro air vehicle having a navigation system with a single camera to determine position and attitude of the vehicle using changes the direction to the observed features. The difference between the expected directions to the observed features versus the measured direction to the observed features is used to correct a navigation solution.

Mode And Implementation Of A Hybrid Control System For A 2-Mode Hybrid Electric Vehicle, Zhenhua Zhu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Automotive transportation consumes more than 71% of the world's total petroleum energy. The vehicle will have to use less because it will take less than 30 years to consume the rest of the proven conventional oil reservoir if the fuel consumption keeps the current trend. One of the methods to improve the vehicle efficiency is to develop Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV). An HEV combines an internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric motor(s) powered by batteries or capacitors to achieve better fuel economy. Among the HEVs, 2-Mode HEV combines an ICE and two electric motors with two planetary gear sets and …

Nonholonomic Feedback Control Among Moving Obstacles, Stephen Gregory Armstrong

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

A feedback controller is developed for navigating a nonholonomic vehicle in an area with multiple stationary and possibly moving obstacles. Among other applications the developed algorithms can be used for automatic parking of a passenger car in a parking lot with complex configuration or a ground robot in cluttered environment. Several approaches are explored which combine nonholonomic systems control based on sliding modes and potential field methods.

Primary And Secondary Incident Management: Predicting Durations In Real Time, Asad J. Khattak, Xin Wang, Hongbing Zhang, Mecit Cetin

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Traffic incidents are a major source of congestion in Virginia. Secondary incidents comprise a relatively small but important portion of all incidents, and relatively little is known about their occurrence, characteristics, and associated delays. The main objectives of this study were to define secondary incidents, understand and analyze the occurrence and nature of such incidents, and develop tools that can comprehensively and continuously analyze primary and secondary incidents at the planning and operational levels, ultimately contributing to congestion management. The scope of the study is limited to freeway incidents in the Hampton Roads (HR) area. The study found that secondary …

Marine Buoy Detection Using Circular Hough Transform, Loc Tran, Justin Selfridge, Gene Hou, Jiang Li

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A low cost method for buoy detection in maritime settings is presented using inexpensive digital cameras. In this method, the circular Hough transform is applied to an edge image to circular objects in the image. The center of these circles will signify the locations of each buoy. The known color information of the buoys is also used to enhance the performance by removing false detections. The algorithm is compared to an approach that locates buoys purely on color information. In order to validate the method, we test the approach synthetically and also with real images captured from a small surface …

Exploiting A Gsm Network For Precise Payload Delivery, Eugene A. Bourakov, Oleg A. Yakimenko, Nathan Slegers

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

This paper introduces the novel concept of using a GSM network for command of and communications with multiple aerial delivery systems. The research prototype of such a system, Snowflake-N, allows communicating with other network clients via a commercial Blackberry Curve 8310 handheld over a Bluetooth connection. A new architecture allows reassigning targets and sending other relevant commands (via web interface, by voice, data, or text messages) to an onboard autopilot, which is within a network reach, from any place in the world. Similarly, a current position of the descending system and target assignment can be viewed from any computer connected …

Optimal Control For Terminal Guidance Of Autonomous Parafoils, Nathan Slegers, Oleg A. Yakimenko

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

This paper deals with the development of guidance, navigation and control algorithms for a prototype of a miniature aerial delivery system capable of high-precision maneuvering and high touchdown accuracy. High accuracy enables use in precision troop resupply, sensor placement, urban warfare reconnaissance, and other similar operations. Specifically, this paper addresses the terminal phase, where uncertainties in winds cause most of the problems. The paper develops a six degree-of-freedom model to adequately address dynamics and kinematics of the prototype delivery system and then reduces it to a two degrees-of-freedom model to develop a model predictive control algorithm for reference trajectory tracking …

Comment On "Three-Dimensional Ascent Trajectory Optimization For Stratospheric Airship Platforms In The Jet Stream", Nathan Slegers, Ainsmar X. Brown

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

No abstract provided.

Development And Testing Of The Miniature Aerial Delivery System Snowflake, Oleg A. Yakimenko, Nathan Slegers, Robyn A. Tiaden

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

This paper discusses the current status of the development of the miniature aerial delivery system to be further employed in a variety of different research projects. It starts from the overall description of the system and proceeds with the discussion of the test results performed so far. Specifically, it addresses the effects of the changing ground winds on touchdown accuracy. The paper ends with conclusions and recommendations.

Use Of Variable Incidence Angle For Glide Slope Control Of Autonomous Parafoils, Nathan Slegers, Eric Beyer, Mark Costello

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

Strictly speaking, most autonomous parafoil and payload systems possess only lateral control, achieved by right and left parafoil brake deflection. An innovative technique to achieve direct longitudinal control through incidence angle changes is reported. Addition of this extra control channel requires simple rigging changes and an additional servoactuator. The ability of incidence angle to alter the glide slope of a parafoil and payload aircraft is demonstrated through a flight-test program with a microparafoil system. Results from the flight-test program are synthesized and integrated into a six degree-of-freedom simulation. The simulation model is subsequently used to assess the utility of glide …

Use Of Dynamic Incidence Angle For Glide Slope Control Of Autonomous Parafoils, Nathan Slegers, Eric Beyer, Mark Costello

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

Strickly speaking, most autonomous parafoil and payload aircraft possess only lateral control, achieved by right and left parafoil brake deflection. An innovative new technique to achieve direct longitudinal control through dynamic incidence angle changes is reported. Addition of this extra control channel requires simple rigging changes and an additional servo actuator. The ability of dynamic incidence angle to alter the glide slope of a parafoil and payload aircraft is demonstrated through a flight test program with a micro parafoil system. Results from the flight test program are synthesized and integrated into a 6 degree-of-freedom simulation. The simulation model is subsequently …

Techniques For Assessing And Improving Performance In Navigation And Wayfinding Using Mobile Augmented Reality, Brian Goldiez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Augmented reality is a field of technology in which the real world is overlaid with additional information from a computer generated display. Enhancements to augmented reality technology presently support limited mobility which is expected to increase in the future to provide much greater real world functionality. This work reports on a set of experiments that investigate performance in search and rescue navigating tasks using augmented reality. Augmentation consisted of a spatially and temporally registered map of a maze that was overlaid onto a real world maze. Participants were required to traverse the maze, answer spatially oriented questions in the maze, …

Comparison Of Measured And Simulated Motion Of A Controllable Parafoil And Payload System, Nathan Slegers, Mark Costello

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

For parafoil and payload aircraft, control is affected by changing the length of several rigging lines connected to the outboard side and rear of the parafoil leading to complex changes in the shape and orientation of the lifting surface. Flight mechanics of parafoil and payload aircraft most often employ a 6 or 9 DOF representation with the canopy modeled as a rigid body during flight. The effect of control inputs is idealized by the deflection of parafoil brakes on the left and right side of the parafoil. Using a small parafoil and payload aircraft, glide rates and turn performance were …

On The Use Of Rigging Angle And Canopy Tilt For Control Of A Parafoil And Payload System, Nathan Slegers, Mark Costello

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

Controllable parafoil and payload aircraft are controlled with downward deflection of left and right parafoil brakes. Lateral control is obtained by differential deflection while longitudinal control is created by collective deflection of the left and right side parafoil brakes. The work reported considers an alternative method to control parafoil and payload air vehicles by tilting the parafoil canopy for lateral control and changing rigging angle for longitudinal control. Using a nonlinear 9 degree of freedom simulation model, it is shown that canopy tilt provides a powerful lateral control mechanism and rigging angle provides a viable longitudinal control mechanism.

The Development Of Training And Practice Of Navigation For Advanced Ships : Application To Merchant Marine Training Centre Programmes In Thailand, Thiti Tingmai

World Maritime University Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of an advanced ship, focusing on the training needs for a navigation officer by taking into consideration technological advances, operational factors and human factors. A short overview is given of current and future trends, and developments in modem technology in shipping including an advanced bridge in the form of an integrated bridge system. The role of the navigator, bridge operational procedures and conditions, and training needs are examined, taking into account manning and technological change that have taken place. The required knowledge, skills and attitude for an operator of advanced ships are identified. The importance …

High-Speed Craft (Hsc) : A Study Of Their Safe Operation And Navigation, And Their Impact Upon The Malacca Strait, Lim Yew Seng

World Maritime University Dissertations

The dissertation is a study of the safe operation and navigation of High-speed Craft (HSC) and their impact upon the Malacca Strait. The definitions of HSC are compared and illustrated. The future trend, growth and development of current types of HSC and their inherent design limitations are investigated. The maneuvering systems and characteristics of HSC are analyzed. The active safety system employed by HSC is compared to the passive safety system of conventional vessels. The operation and navigation problems due to high-speed are investigated. The human resource management methods of reducing human errors are discussed. The navigational requirements of the …

The System Design And Evaluation Of A Microprocessor Controlled Dispenser Using A Radar Ground-Speed Sensor, Yu-Charn Chen

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This experimental research focused on the design of a new approach to control seed dispensers and to analyze the performance characteristics of a Doppler radar ground speed sensor for a microprocessor control dispenser. The research focused on comparing the effectiveness of using a radar unit with a fifth-wheel encoder for measuring ground speed when both were connected to a microprocessor controlled seed dispenser.

The system designed for this study consisted of hardware and a computer program in 6502 assembly language. The hardware for this study consisted of a monitor device, microprocessor control unit, stepper motor, fifth-wheel encoder, Doppler radar and …