ODTÜ-KISS ve Ankara Üniversitesi-VICON yürüyüş analizi sistemlerinin kinematik sonuçlarının karşılaştırılması.

KISS (Kinematic Support System) is a locally developed gait analysis system at Middle East Technical University (METU), and the performance of the system was evaluated before as a whole. However, such evaluations do not differentiate between the efficacy of the data acquisition system and the model-based gait analysis methodology. In this thesis, kinematic results of the KISS system will be compared with those of the Ankara University based commercial VICON (Oxford Metrics Ltd., Oxford, UK) system, in view of evaluating the performance of data acquisition system and the gait analysis methodology separately. This study is expected to provide guidelines for future developments on the KISS system.M.S. - Master of Scienc

İtki profili ve yörünge eniyilemesi ile çok kademeli fırlatma aracı tasarımı

In the frame of this thesis, a Matlab® based design tool utilizing a general purpose optimal control solver GPOPS-II® was developed for the optimization of ascent trajectories of multistage launch vehicles. This tool can be utilized both for preliminary mission design of an existing launch vehicle and conceptual design of a new launch vehicle. In the preliminary mission design of an existing launch vehicle, maximizing payload mass is a very common performance measure. Therefore, a trajectory optimization code was developed to determine the optimal trajectory in terms of position and velocity, and the control functions corresponding to that trajectory while maximizing the payload mass. Whereas in the conceptual design of a new launch vehicle, minimization of gross lift-off mass for a specific mission is the primary objective, and staging is an effective way to reduce the vehicle gross lift-off mass. For this purpose, a staging optimization code was developed to determine the staging parameters (mass distribution between stages, propellant and structural mass of each individual stage) which minimize the gross lift-off mass. In this thesis, staging and trajectory optimization codes were integrated by two different manners, namely the decoupled and the coupled approaches, so as to determine the sizing, burn time and thrust time history of each stage together with the optimal trajectory of the launch vehicle. Thus, a quick and effective method to find optimal vehicle configurations in the early design phases was achieved.Ph.D. - Doctoral Progra

A Generalized Staging Optimization Program For Space Launch Vehicles

This paper addresses the staging optimization problem for multistage rockets which carry payloads from the Earth's surface into the Earth orbits. In the early design phases, requirements are not so strict, there are many unknowns and problem arises as to what is the optimum staging to achieve the given mission. Therefore, designers need simplified tools providing a quick insight on the vehicle performance with minimum basic vehicle data. For this purpose, a Matlab (R) based computer program has been written to determine staging parameters (number of stages, mass distribution between stages, and the propellant and structural masses for each individual stage) which minimize the gross lift-off mass of the launch vehicle for a specific mission