Synthesis and Characterization of Nature Inspired Fluorophores

Oxyluciferin is the product of bioluminescence reaction of firefly luciferin. It has a highly conjugated structure and is non-toxici to animal cells. The thesis concerns the investigation of transforming the features of oxyluciferin into a bio-friendly fluorophore. The background and introduction chapters include how the fluorescence phenomenon has been discovered and a mechanistic explanation. It also covers several typical fluorophores and their applications. The second chapter starts from the design of keto and iminium derivatives of oxyluciferin with different electron-donating substituents. Then moves to their chemical synthesis includes direct condensation reaction between the corresponding ketone and dialkylamine. The third chapter covers the design of pyridine and pyridinium derivatives of oxyluciferin, the synthesis of which includes cyclisation methods of constructing thiazole and thiazolopyridine rings. Around 20 novel analogues have been successfully synthesized. The fourth part gives a brief description of optical properties of all the fluorophores prepared, includes some aggregation induced emission (AIE) fluorophores. The fluorescence of different analogues have nearly covered the entire visible light region. The bioconjugation reaction of the most promising fluorophore with an antibody illustrates the potential of its biological application. The final chapter contains detailed experimental procedures and charcacterisation data. The thesis is fully referenced to the primary literature

6-DOF All-Terrain Cyclocopter

This paper presents the design of a 6-DOF all-terrain micro aerial vehicle and two control strategies for multimodal flight, which are experimentally validated. The micro aerial vehicle is propelled by four motors and controlled by a single servo for the control of the cycloidal rotors(cyclorotors) speed and lift direction. Despite the addition of the servo, the system remains underactuated. To address the traditional underactuation problem of cycloidal rotor aircraft, we increase the number of control variables. We propose a PID and a nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) framework to tackle the model's nonlinearities and achieve control of attitude, position, and their derivatives.Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed multimodal control strategy for 6-DOF all-terrain micro aerial vehicles. The vehicle can operate in aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic modes and can adapt to different terrains and environmental conditions. Our approach enhances the vehicle's performance in each mode of operation, and the results show the advantages of the proposed strategy compared to other control strategies