An Active helideck testbed for floating structures based on a Stewart-Gough platform

A parallel robot testbed based on Stewart-Gough platform called Active-helideck is designed, developed and tested as a helicopter floating helideck. The objective of this testbed is to show the advantages of helicopters that use an active helideck upon landing on and taking off from ships or from offshore structures. Active-helideck compensates simulated movements of a ship at sea. The main goal of this study is to maintain the robot’s end effector (helideck) in a quasi-static position in accordance to an absolute inertial frame. Compensation is carried out through the coordinate action of its six prismatic actuators in function of an inertial measurement unit. Moreover, the simulation of the sea movement is done by a parallel robot called ship platform with three degrees of freedom. The ship platform is built with a vertical oscillation along the z axis, i.e. heave, and rotates on remaining axes, i.e. roll and pitch. Active helideck is able to compensate simulated movements by considering the ship as an inertial frame as observed in the experiment

RADAR Based Collision Avoidance for Unmanned Aircraft Systems

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) have become increasingly prevalent and will represent an increasing percentage of all aviation. These unmanned aircraft are available in a wide range of sizes and capabilities and can be used for a multitude of civilian and military applications. However, as the number of UAS increases so does the risk of mid-air collisions involving unmanned aircraft. This dissertation aims present one possible solution for addressing the mid-air collision problem in addition to increasing the levels of autonomy of UAS beyond waypoint navigation to include preemptive sensor-based collision avoidance. The presented research goes beyond the current state of the art by demonstrating the feasibility and providing an example of a scalable, self-contained, RADAR-based, collision avoidance system. The technology described herein can be made suitable for use on a miniature (Maximum Takeoff Weight \u3c 10kg) UAS platform. This is of paramount importance as the miniature UAS field has the lowest barriers to entry (acquisition and operating costs) and consequently represents the most rapidly increasing class of UAS

Space, the new frontier

Space program - high thrust boosters with greater payload capabilities, superior guidance and control, and astronaut trainin

Unclassified information list, 12-16 September 1966

Book and document information list - astrophysics, atmospherics, biology, nuclear physics, missile technology, navigation, electronics, chemistry, materials, mathematics, and other topic

Aeronautics and space report of the President, 1982 activities

Achievements of the space program are summerized in the area of communication, Earth resources, environment, space sciences, transportation, aeronautics, and space energy. Space program activities of the various deprtments and agencies of the Federal Government are discussed in relation to the agencies' goals and policies. Records of U.S. and world spacecraft launchings, successful U.S. launches for 1982, U.S. launched applications and scientific satellites and space probes since 1975, U.S. and Soviet manned spaceflights since 1961, data on U.S. space launch vehicles, and budget summaries are provided. The national space policy and the aeronautical research and technology policy statements are included

Proceedings of the 20th SIRWEC conference, Druskininkai, Lithuania (14-16th June 2022)

SIRWEC (The Standing International Road Weather Commission) exists to encourage meteorologists, weather forecasters, highway engineers, road masters and others, who are interested in road weather problems, to exchange ideas to make our roads safer to drive on in all weather conditions. Every two years SIRWEC conference is being organized to gather all of the road weather enthusiasts and encourage them to share new scientific discoveries they have accomplished, new products or technologies they have made or any other topic in road weather field

The Miniaturization of the AFIT Random Noise Radar

Advances in technology and signal processing techniques have opened the door to using an UWB random noise waveform for radar imaging. This unique, low probability of intercept waveform has piqued the interest of the U.S. DoD as well as law enforcement and intelligence agencies alike. While AFIT\u27s noise radar has made significant progress, the current architecture needs to be redesigned to meet the space constraints and power limitations of an aerial platform. This research effort is AFIT\u27s first attempt at RNR miniaturization and centers on two primary objectives: 1) identifying a signal processor that is compact, energy efficient, and capable of performing the demanding signal processing routines and 2) developing a high-speed correlation algorithm that is suited for the target hardware. A correlation routine was chosen as the design goal because of its importance to the noise radar\u27s ability to estimate the presence of a return signal. Furthermore, it is a computationally intensive process that was used to determine the feasibility of the processing component. To determine the performance of the proposed algorithm, results from simulation and experiments involving representative hardware were compared to the current system. Post-implementation reports of the FPGA-based correlator indicated zero timing failures, less than a Watt of power consumption, and a 44% utilization of the Virtex-5\u27s logic resources

Automated tracking of the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus)

The electronic, physical, biological and environmental factors involved in the automated remote tracking of the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus) are identified. The current status of the manatee as an endangered species is provided. Brief descriptions of existing tracking and position locating systems are presented to identify the state of the art in these fields. An analysis of energy media is conducted to identify those with the highest probability of success for this application. Logistic questions such as the means of attachment and position of any equipment to be placed on the manatee are also investigated. Power sources and manateeborne electronics encapsulation techniques are studied and the results of a compter generated DF network analysis are summarized