Energy-Harvesting Mechanisms for UAV Flight by Dynamic Soaring

Dynamic Soaring is a flying technique which extracts energy from an environment where wind gradients form, with the potential to increase the endurance of small unmanned vehicles. The feasibility to use dynamic soaring flight is questioned here; it requires the identification of energy-extraction mechanisms as well as accurate understanding of the way energy-harvesting performances are governed by trajectory constraints, vehicle characteristics and environment conditions. A three-dimensional energy-neutral trajectory is derived out of a specified optimization problem. Characteristic phases of flight are evidenced out of the overall trajectory. Simplified equations are used to evidence the physics behind energy transfers. Finally, overall energy-harvesting balance is studied through local variations of total energy along the path

Impact of batch variability on physicochemical properties of manufactured TiO2 and SiO2 nanopowders

International audienceThe development, manufacturing and commercialization of nanomaterials require traceable characterisation processes for quality control and safety of both the exposed workers and final customers. Even if the production batches are considered to be compliant with the industrial applications intended by manufacturers, it is necessary to study the reproducibility of the manufacturing process of nanomaterials independently, so as to determine the variability of key physico-chemical properties of nano-objects from one batch to another.In this study, a metrological approach was employed, using different traceable analytical techniques (X-Ray Diffraction, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Nitrogen physisorption with Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method, X-Ray Fluorescence, Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer and Aerodynamic Particle Sizer) to develop robust, reproducible and statistical methods to evaluate the impact of batch variability on physico-chemical properties of manufactured titanium dioxide and silicon dioxide nano-powders (crystalline structure, crystallite size, primary particle size, specific surface area, chemical composition and the dustiness of nanopowders).Five references of manufactured titanium dioxide nanoparticles and silicon dioxide nanoparticles were characterized with the developed measurement protocols. The reproducibilities of five batches by reference were overall inferior to 10% for crystalline structures, primary particle sizes, specific surface areas and the chemical composition of major components (TiO2 and SiO2) of the nanopowders studied (k = 1). As for the size distributions of released particles from dustiness tests, reproducibility for the modal and mean diameters ranged between 2% and 27%. Moreover, a large variation of nanopowder dustiness was obtained for the same material type (TiO2 or SiO2). This could point out that the physico-chemical properties of nanopowders, linked to the manufacturing process, have a strong impact on the dustiness parameter

The First PPP-Based GPS Water Vapor Real-Time Monitoring System in Pearl-River-Delta Region, China

China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC) 2013, Wuhan, China, 15-17 May 2013The first Precipitable Water Vapor Real-Time Monitoring System (PWVRMS) based on Global Positioning System Precise Point Positioning (PPP) technique has been developed for the Pearl-River-Delta region. This PWVRMS system estimates GPS satellite clock error data in real-time while using International GNSS Service (IGS) predicted precise satellite orbit directly. Currently it processes GPS data every 10 min on a daily basis from three networks in Pearl-River-Delta region: Hong Kong SatRef GPS network, Macao MoSRef GPS network and Guangdong CORS network. Compared to traditional double-differencing technique, the advantage of using PPP technique is that (1) the PWV estimation at each station is completely independent and is not affected by data quality at other stations; (2) the computation is much faster and simpler. This PWVRMS system is evaluated using radiosonde water vapor data. The GPS PWV accuracy is about 2.20 mm though the GPS station is 4.1 km away from the radiosonde. It is expected the actual GPS PWV accuracy should be higher if the GPS station is collocated with the radiosonde station. The real-time PWV products can be widely used in weather forecasts, climate researches, and water vapor correction for remote sensing images such as SAR applications. Currently the PWVRMS supplies real-time water vapor data to several meteorological agencies in Pearl-River-Delta region including Hong Kong Observatory, Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau, Shenzhen Meteorological Bureau and Guangdong Meteorological Bureau for their weather forecasting service and research.Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatic