AURORA: Autonomous Unpowered Recovery Of Radiosonde Aircraft

Each year, over 70,000 radiosondes are launched into our atmosphere aboard weather balloons to gather data used for weather prediction, climate research, directing air traffic, and more. After ascending to 120,000 ft, the radiosondes descend to Earth under a small parachute. Most of these radiosondes are used only once due to the lack of a means for recovery; more than 80% of radiosondes launched are lost. This project developed an autonomous radiosonde glider that actively steers itself from the apex of its flight to recovery locations on the ground. This enables easy and reliable recovery, reducing costs and offering new capabilities to atmospheric researchers. The glider integrates the essential weather sensors used on current radiosondes with those needed for autonomous flight

Fuzzy controller structures investigation for future gas turbine aero-engines

The Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE) Flight Path 2050 focuses on ambitious and severe targets for the next generation of air travel systems (e.g., 75% reduction in CO2 emissions per passenger kilometer, a 90% reduction in NOx emissions, and 65% reduction in noise emission of flying aircraft relative to the capabilities of typical new aircraft in 2000). In order to meet these requirements, aircraft engines should work very close to their operating limits. Therefore, the importance of advanced control strategies to satisfy all engine control modes simultaneously while protecting them from malfunctions and physical damages is being more crucial these days. In the last three decades, fuzzy controllers (FCs) have been proposed as a high potential solution for performance improvement of the next generation of aircraft engines. Based on an analytic review, this paper divides the trend of FCs design into two main lines including pure FCs (PFC) and min–max FCs (MMFC). These two main architectures are then designed, implemented on hardware, and applied in a case study to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each structure. The analysis of hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation results shows that the pure FC structure would be a high potential candidate for maneuverability and response time indices improvement (e.g., military applications); while min–max FC architecture has a great potential for future civil aero-engines where the fuel consumption and steady-state responses are more important. The simulation results are also compared with those of industrial min–max controllers to confirm the feasibility and reliability of the fuzzy controllers for real-world application. The results of this paper propose a general roadmap for fuzzy controllers’ structure selection for new and next generation of aircraft engines

Proceedings of the 4th field robot event 2006, Stuttgart/Hohenheim, Germany, 23-24th June 2006

Zeer uitgebreid verslag van het 4e Fieldrobotevent, dat gehouden werd op 23 en 24 juni 2006 in Stuttgart/Hohenhei

Development of Electronics, Software, and Graphical User Control Interface for a Wall-Climbing Robot

The objective for this project is to investigate various electrical and software means of control to support and advance the development of a novel vacuum adhesion system for a wall-climbing robot. The design and implementation of custom electronics and a wirelessly controlled real-time software system used to define and support the functionalities of these electronics is discussed. The testing and evaluation of the overall system performance and the performance of the several different subsystems developed, while working both individually and cooperatively within the system, is also demonstrated

Contribution to the development of microwave remote sensing for UAV systems.

Microwave technology is very sensitive to Radio Frequency Interferences (RFI). Works previously done within this Master by Marc Jou [1] showed the impossibility to retrieve measurements using L-band radiometers on-board drones. After detecting such issue, Balamis first tried to solve it by hardware: a new antenna design and the extensive use of shielding on the drone were tried without success. Balamis started the development of its first digital radiometer based on the use of Software Defined Radio architecture on 2017, partially funded with the support of CDTI. The resulting minimum viable digital radiometer was ready by June 2019, but it did not include any RFI mitigation capability. Developments done my Master student Ahmad Daoud [2] demonstrated the identification of RFI using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) over RAW data but could not provide any efficient implementation of its mitigation on-board the L-band radiometer. The proposed solution is the implementation of the FFT and the RFI filters using Field Programmable Gate of Array (FPGA) for the input signals, and its concurrent performance. Filtering an analog signal by introducing in-system FFT of ZYNQ7000 FPGA is implemented in this project. Additionally, the power consumption of FPGA, and the need to dissipate it, forces the development of a temperature control system with cooling capabilities. It is done to improve the previous heating-only thermal control of Balamis radiometer. Such more advanced thermal control will be also used for the Interferometric Ground-based Synthetic Aperture Radar that Balamis is developing. Solving these two goals are therefore the purpose of this Master Thesis

Řídící jednotka modelu rakety

With the ever increasing density of computational power and with simultaneous decrease of cost of integrated circuits and sensors, there are fields, where active control is just becoming possible. One such field is model rocketry. As a hobby, it has been around for decades, dating back all the way to the 1950s. Though actively controlled model rockets have just recently started appearing. While there are publications on the topic of modeling the control system of model rockets, there is little work published about a selection of the hardware for control units, their design and software implementaion. This work focuses on selecting the most appropriate microcontroller and peripherals for this control unit and on implementing the necessary software. The selected microcontroller will replace the Atmega328 microcontroller, which is commonly used on the control unit as a part of an Arduino board. Moreover, the selected sensors will be subjected to an actual flight of a model rocket and data visualization and analysis will be a part of the text.Při stále se zmenšující velikosti výpočetní techniky a při současném snižování ceny integrovaných obvodů a senzorů, se objevují další a další oblasti, kde se aktivní řízení postupně stává možným. Jednou z takových oblastí je raketové modelářství. Přesto, že jako hobby sahá svými počátky až do 50. let 20. století, aktivně stabilizované modely raket se začaly objevovat teprve nedávno. Dostupných je několik publikací, zabývajících se modelováním řídícího systému raketových modelů. Na druhou stranu zde je málo prací, které by se orientovaly na návrh řídící jednotky, na výběr hardwaru a na implementaci softwaru. Tato práce se zaměřuje na výběr vhodného mikrokontroléru a periferií, které budou základem řídící jednotky, a na tvorbu potřebného softwarového řešení. Vybraný mikrokontrolér nahradí mikrokontrolér Atmega328, který tvůrci často používají v řídících jednotkách na některé desce z řady Arduino. Vybrané senzory budou testovány za letu na modelu rakety a vizualizace a analýza letových dat bude součástí textu.460 - Katedra informatikyvýborn

Embedded electronic systems driven by run-time reconfigurable hardware

Abstract This doctoral thesis addresses the design of embedded electronic systems based on run-time reconfigurable hardware technology –available through SRAM-based FPGA/SoC devices– aimed at contributing to enhance the life quality of the human beings. This work does research on the conception of the system architecture and the reconfiguration engine that provides to the FPGA the capability of dynamic partial reconfiguration in order to synthesize, by means of hardware/software co-design, a given application partitioned in processing tasks which are multiplexed in time and space, optimizing thus its physical implementation –silicon area, processing time, complexity, flexibility, functional density, cost and power consumption– in comparison with other alternatives based on static hardware (MCU, DSP, GPU, ASSP, ASIC, etc.). The design flow of such technology is evaluated through the prototyping of several engineering applications (control systems, mathematical coprocessors, complex image processors, etc.), showing a high enough level of maturity for its exploitation in the industry.Resumen Esta tesis doctoral abarca el diseño de sistemas electrónicos embebidos basados en tecnología hardware dinámicamente reconfigurable –disponible a través de dispositivos lógicos programables SRAM FPGA/SoC– que contribuyan a la mejora de la calidad de vida de la sociedad. Se investiga la arquitectura del sistema y del motor de reconfiguración que proporcione a la FPGA la capacidad de reconfiguración dinámica parcial de sus recursos programables, con objeto de sintetizar, mediante codiseño hardware/software, una determinada aplicación particionada en tareas multiplexadas en tiempo y en espacio, optimizando así su implementación física –área de silicio, tiempo de procesado, complejidad, flexibilidad, densidad funcional, coste y potencia disipada– comparada con otras alternativas basadas en hardware estático (MCU, DSP, GPU, ASSP, ASIC, etc.). Se evalúa el flujo de diseño de dicha tecnología a través del prototipado de varias aplicaciones de ingeniería (sistemas de control, coprocesadores aritméticos, procesadores de imagen, etc.), evidenciando un nivel de madurez viable ya para su explotación en la industria.Resum Aquesta tesi doctoral està orientada al disseny de sistemes electrònics empotrats basats en tecnologia hardware dinàmicament reconfigurable –disponible mitjançant dispositius lògics programables SRAM FPGA/SoC– que contribueixin a la millora de la qualitat de vida de la societat. S’investiga l’arquitectura del sistema i del motor de reconfiguració que proporcioni a la FPGA la capacitat de reconfiguració dinàmica parcial dels seus recursos programables, amb l’objectiu de sintetitzar, mitjançant codisseny hardware/software, una determinada aplicació particionada en tasques multiplexades en temps i en espai, optimizant així la seva implementació física –àrea de silici, temps de processat, complexitat, flexibilitat, densitat funcional, cost i potència dissipada– comparada amb altres alternatives basades en hardware estàtic (MCU, DSP, GPU, ASSP, ASIC, etc.). S’evalúa el fluxe de disseny d’aquesta tecnologia a través del prototipat de varies aplicacions d’enginyeria (sistemes de control, coprocessadors aritmètics, processadors d’imatge, etc.), demostrant un nivell de maduresa viable ja per a la seva explotació a la indústria

An approach to design of digital sliding mode control for DC-DC converters

The primary goal of research in this Ph.D. dissertation is to investigate the possibilities of application of modern control methods in controlling the output voltage of the DC-DC converters (buck, boost) in order to ensure the system robustness to the input voltage and load variations. This dissertation deals with the analysis and application of sliding mode control algorithms in the synthesis of these converters in order to improve the properties of existing converters and to modify them, as well as to adjust and tune the digital sliding mode controls based on the input-output plant model to be applicable in these converters. The design procedure is based on the converter models given in the form of discrete transfer functions. The proposed control for converters is a combination of the digital sliding mode control and (generalized) minimum variance control techniques. The problem caused by an unstable zero of the boost converter, which prevents the direct control of the output voltage of this converter, has been overcome by introducing the generalized minimum variance control. Also, only the output voltage of converter must be measured for the realization of the proposed control, so there is no need for an additional current sensor. This dissertation includes the modification of the developed algorithms with the aim of applying them to low-cost, standard 8- bit microcontrollers. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed solutions is verified by digital simulation and a series of experiments on the laboratory developed prototypes of both converters, as well as by their comparative analysis. The satisfactory experimental results are obtained regarding the typical characteristics of the converters