Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Autonomous Navigation And Control Of Unmanned Aerial Systems In The National Airspace, Michael Hlas, Jeremy Straub, Eunjin Kim

Jeremy Straub

Pilotless aircraft known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been used extensively for military and intelligence purposes. This includes situations where the mission area is too dangerous for a pilot to fly, the length of the mission is longer than a pilot could stay awake or aircraft are used as cruise missiles that crash into their target. With the decreasing cost and miniaturization of computers, it has become possible to build UAVs that are small and inexpensive making them accessible to businesses, law enforcement, hobbyists and the general public.

The Differences Are Not So Great: High Altitude Balloon And Small Spacecraft Software Development, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

Previous work discussed critical differences in planning, developing hardware for and executing a high altitude balloon (HAB) mission. One area where this difference is less pronounced is in software development, allowing HABs to be utilized as a ‘software testbed’ for many orbital missions. This paper provides an overview of the software development process for both orbital and HAB craft, highlighting differences between the two processes and the numerous similarities. It concludes by presenting a framework for analyzing the suitability of HAB testing for small satellite software.

The Use Of Solar Balloons At Und As A Low-Cost Alternative To Helium Balloons For Small Spacecraft Testing And Stem Education, John Nordlie, Jeremy Straub, Chris Theisen, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

Helium-filled latex weather balloons have been utilized for many years to carry small satellite prototypes and subsystems into the stratosphere to allow testing in a “near space” (stratospheric) environment. A variety of environmental factors similar to the space environment can be found in this region, such as a rarified atmosphere, increased thermal stress including very low temperatures, increased solar radiation, the necessity of remote command and control, tracking, and telemetering of data. While this method of flight testing has been well-proven, a recent increase in the price of helium has driven the cost of such test programs to much higher …

Enabling Interplanetary Small Spacecraft Science Missions With Model Based Data Analysis, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Small spacecraft operating outside of Earth orbit are significantly constrained by the communica- tions link available to them. This is particularly true for stand-alone craft that must rely on their own antenna and transmission systems (for which gain and available power generation are limited by form factor); it is also applicable to ‘hitchhiker’-style missions which may be able to utilize (quite likely very limited amounts of) time on the primary spacecraft’s communications equip- ment for long-haul transmission.

This poster presents the adaptation of the Model-Based Transmission Reduction (MBTR) frame- work’s Model-Based Data Analysis (MBDA) component for use on an interplanetary …

Desktop Warfare: Robotic Collaboration For Persistent Surveillance, Situational Awareness And Combat Operations, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Robotic sensing and weapons platforms can be controlled from a desktop workstation on the other side of the planet from where combat is occurring. This minimizes the potential for injury to soldiers and increases operational productivity. Significant work has been undertaken and is ongoing related to the autonomous control of battlefield sensing and warfighting systems. While many aspects of these operations can be performed autonomously, in some cases it is necessary (due to technical limitations) or desirable (due to legal or political implications) to involve humans in the low-level decision making. This paper reviews a number of specific applications where …

A Human Proximity Operations System Test Case Validation Approach, Justin Huber, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

A Human Proximity Operations System (HPOS) poses numerous risks in a real world environment. These risks range from mundane tasks such as avoiding walls and fixed obstacles to the critical need to keep people and processes safe in the context of the HPOS’s situation-specific decision making. Validating the performance of an HPOS, which must operate in a real-world environment, is an ill posed problem due to the complexity that is introduced by erratic (non-computer) actors. In order to prove the HPOS’s usefulness, test cases must be generated to simulate possible actions of these actors, so the HPOS can be shown …

Formalizing Mission Analysis And Design Techniques For High Altitude Ballooning, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Fevig

Jeremy Straub

High altitude balloon (HAB) missions can be and are used to teach concepts related to spacecraft and satellite design. A HAB mission, however, presents unique characteristics, which must be understood and respected to produce a desirable outcome. Because of this, flying an unaltered satellite design as a HAB payload would be as undesirable as utilizing an unaltered HAB design as a satellite. A well-defined process for HAB mission design is thus needed. The process presented mirrors commonly used space mission design processes to facilitate easy transition between the two. It is also comparatively simple, due to the smaller scale of …