Concept Refinement of a Payload Derived Position Acquisition System for Parachute Recovery Systems

20th AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference and Seminar, Seattle, WA, May 4-7 2009.The paper covers the continued development of a Payload Derived Position Acquisition System (PDPAS) to overcome current limitations posed on recovering the trajectory data for a generic parachute recovery system (PRS). The PDPAS is an instrumentation set and software algorithm that is to be installed onto PRS in order to estimate PRS state vector parameters in real-time for testing and operational use. The development of the PDPAD has progressed to a point where it is providing quality data and is ready for development into a usable instrumentation package. The paper discusses the concept of the PDPAS, the first implementation of the PDPAS, changes made to the PDPAS due to continued development, and the steps for needed for the PDPAS to be a validated instrumentation package

On Development of Autonomous HAHO Parafoil System for Targeted Payload Return

22nd AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference, Daytona Beach, FL, March 25-28, 2013.An autonomous HAHO (high altitude, high-opening) parafoil system design is presented as a solution to the final descent phase of an on-demand International Space Station (ISS) sample return concept. The system design is tailored to meet specific constraints defined by a larger study at NASA Ames Research Center, called SPQR (Small Payload Quick-Return). Building on previous work in small, autonomous parafoil systems development, a SPQR compatible evolution of an existing advanced parafoil delivery system is designed, built, and test-flown deployed from unmanned air vehicles and high-altitude balloons. Results of the preliminary tests of the original and SPQR-compatible systems are presented, and applicability of the test article to actual spaceflight conditions is discussed

Pulse Shape Analysis and Identification of Multipoint Events in a Large-Volume Proportional Counter in an Experimental Search for 2K Capture Kr-78

A pulse shape analysis algorithm and a method for suppressing the noise component of signals from a large copper proportional counter in the experiment aimed at searching for 2K capture of Kr-78 are described. These signals correspond to a compound event with different numbers of charge clusters due to from primary ionization is formed by these signals. A technique for separating single- and multipoint events and determining the charge in individual clusters is presented. Using the Daubechies wavelets in multiresolutional signal analysis, it is possible to increase the sensitivity and the resolution in extraction of multipoint events in the detector by a factor of 3-4.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. submitted to Instruments and Experimental Techniques; ISSN 0020/441

Computation of the Safety Fans for Multistage Aerodelivery Systems

20th AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference and Seminar, Seattle, WA, May 4-7 2009.This paper deals with the development of a mathematical foundation and practical algorithms to compute the safety fans to be used in conjunction with aerodynamic deceleration payload delivery systems tests. The paper provides formulas to compute a descent / gliding trajectory for a multiple-stage system and then considers several cases of major failures. It also introduces the concept of ballistic winds, simplifying calculation of the safety fans so that the computer is no longer needed, and shows how to carefully calculate these ballistic winds based on the best known winds aloft. Finally, the paper introduces the graphical user interface developed and tested by the authors that is supposed to provide test planning officers with a unique variety of trade-off options as well as to effectively represent all safety-related information both to the ground personal and to the crew performing a payload delivery from a transport aircraft or helicopter. The paper ends with conclusions

Visual Pose Estimation for Shipboard Landing of Autonomous Parafoils

IEEE/ION PLANS 2014 Conference, Monterey, CA, May 5-8, 201

Exploiting a GSM Network for Precise Payload Delivery

20th AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference and Seminar, Seattle, WA, May 4-7 2009.The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/6.2009-3004This paper introduces the novel concept of using a GSM network for command of and communications with multiple aerial delivery systems. The research prototype of such a system, Snowflake-N, allows communicating with other network clients via a commercial Blackberry Curve 8310 handheld over a Bluetooth connection. A new architecture allows reassigning targets and sending other relevant commands (via web interface, by voice, data, or text messages) to an onboard autopilot, which is within a network reach, from any place in the world. Similarly, a current position of the descending system and target assignment can be viewed from any computer connected to the Internet worldwide using a standard Google Earth viewer. The networking capability also allows uplinking the latest weather data measured by a portable target weather station, being a part of a network as well, and therefore drastically improving an accuracy of a payload delivery. The paper extends the previous work by the authors and introduces the current state of the Snowflake-N development. It presents a C2 concept for the aerial delivery systems, talks about communication protocols, presents the hardware set-up, components and results of recent drops. The paper ends with conclusions and recommendations for further development

The 2nd Generation of Safety Fans GUI

21st AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference, Dublin, Ireland, May 23-26, 2011

Noh performance of Shunzei Tadanori, Yoshida Nakajirō

The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/6.2008-7487Proceedings of AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, Honolulu, HI, August 18-21, 2008

Lower Stratospheric Deployment Testing of a Ram-Air Parafoil System

AIAA Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Conference, National Harbor, MD, January 13-17, 2014

Unmanned Aircraft Navigation for Shipboard Landing using Infrared Vision

IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, October 2002, vol. 38 no. 4, pp. 1181-1200This paper addresses the problem of determining the relative position and orientation of an unmanned air vehicle with respect to a ship using three visible points of known separation. The images of the points are obtained from an onboard infrared camera. The paper develops a numerical solution to this problem. Both simulation and flight test results are presented