The EPA P3 Program: an Opportunity for Growing Student Entrepreneurs

In this paper we will share our experiences of fostering entrepreneurial spirit through projects funded by EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) P3 (People, Prosperity, and the Planet) Program which hosts the P3 collegiate competition for designing solutions for a sustainable future. Since 2012, we have integrated the P3 competition with the capstone design course of Clean Energy Systems track in mechanical engineering as an effective educational vehicle for introducing the concept of sustainable design. Since the competition focuses on designs which have values of real world application, it is also a great opportunity to create entrepreneurial spirit. We have successfully turned a design from a capstone design prototype to a commercial product through the EPA P3 awards. Similar successful stories have been heard within this program. We will share our story in this paper with an attempt to encourage educators who are working on technologies with commercial viability to take advantage of this unique opportunity to grow more student entrepreneurs

Real-Time Urban Weather Observations for Urban Air Mobility

Cities of the future will have to overcome congestion, air pollution and increasing infrastructure cost while moving more people and goods smoothly, efficiently and in an eco-friendly manner. Urban air mobility (UAM) is expected to be an integral component of achieving this new type of city. This is a new environment for sustained aviation operations. The heterogeneity of the urban fabric and the roughness elements within it create a unique environment where flight conditions can change frequently across very short distances. UAM vehicles with their lower mass, more limited thrust and slower speeds are especially sensitive to these conditions. Since traditional aviation weather products for observations and forecasts at an airport on the outskirts of a metropolitan area do not translate well to the urban environment, weather data for low-altitude urban airspace is needed and will be particularly critical for unlocking the full potential of UAM. To help address this need, crowdsourced weather data from sources prevalent in urban areas offer the opportunity to create dense meteorological observation networks in support of UAM. This paper considers a variety of potential observational sources and proposes a cyber-physical system architecture, including an incentive-based crowdsensing application, which empowers UAM weather forecasting and operations

Portable Water Purification System

An ultra-portable water purification system (1). The system (1) can include a pump (22) for pumping water under pressure through the water purification system (1). The system (1) can also include a battery (14) for supplying power to operate the pump (22), a power source (10) for providing power to the battery (14) and the pump (22), and a charge controller (18), electrically connected to the power source (10), battery (14), and pump (22), for regulating power received from the power source (10) and limiting the power provided to the battery (14) to power the pump (22). The water purification system (1) can also include a mesh strainer (20) upstream of the pump (22), a sediment filter (26), and an electropositive filter (30). The mesh strainer (20), sediment filter (26) and electropositive filter (30) are arranged in series such that the source water is pumped sequentially therethrough

Solar-powered Water Purification and Community Development in Haiti\u27s Artibonite Valley

In May 2017, the Project Haiti team of two faculty and eleven students from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida, working together with a professor and translator from the Universite d’Etat d’Haiti, designed and installed a solar-powered water purification system in the village of Drouin, Artibonite Department, Haiti. This region has been at the epicenter of the post-2010 cholera epidemic that has infected hundreds of thousands and killed many thousands. There has been no reliably safe drinking water in the region. The Haitian operators were empowered with ongoing maintenance and operation of the system, as well as the micro-business operations. Partnership with Haitians and the long-term partnering NGO (non-governmental organization) is a critical enabling aspect that improves sustainability of this community development effort

Design and Commissioning of a Community Scale Solar Powered Membrane-Based Water Purification System in Haiti

This paper presents the design and commissioning of a solar powered water purification system at the Ryan Epps Home for Children (REHC) in Michaud, Haiti. This system supplies clean drinking water to the 200 children who live and go to school at REHC and also to the community in the form of a micro-business. This micro-business is the mechanism for income generation for sustainable system operation. The purifier uses a three stage filtration system with a disc-type sediment filter, a 0.1 micron ultrafiltration membrane, and an ultraviolet light for disinfection. The backwash cycle extends the life of the ultrafiltration membrane to 4 – 7 years before a new filter is required. Simplicity in operation was an important design consideration because it facilitates local operator training, and understanding. To further ensure complete understanding of operation, a pictorial quick-start manual was developed so that operators only need to follow the diagrams laid out on the manual. The design folder with CAD drawings, schematics, datasheets, and troubleshooting guide are left with the local operators. Testing before shipping and after installation to ensure proper operation upon installation and on-site water quality testing ensures it will promote improved community health

Robust Control Techniques Enabling Duty Cycle Experiments Utilizing a 6-DOF Crewstation Motion Base, a Full Scale Combat Hybrid Electric Power System, and Long Distance Internet Communications

The RemoteLink effort supports the U.S. Army\u27s objective for developing and fielding next generation hybrid-electric combat vehicles. It is a distributed soldierin- the-Ioop and hardware-in-the-Ioop environment with a 6-DOF motion base for operator realism, a full-scale combat hybrid electric power system, and an operational context provided by OneSAF. The driver/gunner crewstations rest on one of two 6-DOF motion bases at the U.S. Army TARDEC Simulation Laboratory (TSL). The hybrid power system is located 2,450 miles away at the TARDEC Power and Energy System Integration Laboratory (P&E SIL). The primary technical challenge in the RemoteLink is to operate both laboratories together in real time, coupled over the Internet, to generate a realistic power system duty cycle. A topology has been chosen such that the laboratories have real hardware interacting with simulated components at both locations to guarantee local closed loop stability. This layout is robust to Internet communication failures and ensures the long distance network delay does not enter the local feedback loops. The TSL states and P&E SIL states will diverge due to (1) significant communications delays and (2) unavoidable differences between the TSL\u27s powersystem simulation and the P&E SIL\u27s real hardware-inthe- loop power system. Tightly coupled, bi-directional interactions exist among the various distributed simulations and software- and hardware-in-the-Ioop components representing the driver, gunner, vehicle, and power system. These interactions necessitate additional adjustment to ensure that the respective states at the TSL and P&E SIL sites converge. This is called state convergence and ensures the dominant energetic states of both laboratories remain closely matched in real time. State convergence must be performed at both locations to achieve bi-directional, real-time interaction like that found on a real vehicle. The result is a distributed control system architecture with Internet communications in the state convergence feedback loop. The Internet communication channel is a primary source of uncertainty that impacts the overall state convergence performance and stability. Multiple control schemes were developed and tested in simulation. This paper presents robust control techniques that compensate for asynchronous Internet communication delays during closed loop operation of the TSL and P&E SIL sites. The subsequent soldier- and hardware-in-the-Ioop experiments were performed using a combination of nonlinear Sliding-mode and linear PID control laws to achieve state convergence at both locations. The control system development, performance, and duty cycle results are presented in this paper

Real Time Data Downlink Device for Live Telemetry from Instrumented Vehicles

Real Time Data Downlink Device (RTDD) for Live Telemetry from Instrumented Vehicles Avinash Muthu Krishnan1, Marc D. Compere1, Kevin A. Adkins2 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University 2 Department of Aeronautical Science, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University This paper presents a microcontroller and communications design that delivers real-time telemetry data over the cellular network from vehicles instrumented for scientific or engineering purposes. The Real Time Data Downlink (RTDD) device is being designed for atmospheric data collection on an aerial platform. While this application specifically pertains to the atmospheric sciences, the data collection technique is broadly applicable to ground, surface, or aerial platform data collection. The RTDD is implemented on four DJI Matrice-100 quadcopters that transmit real time position, wind speed, pressure, temperature and humidity over the cellular network. Each vehicle writes sensor data locally while simultaneously transmitting data samples to a data collection computer for real time experiment monitoring. The data collection computer runs an open-sourced software called the Mobility Virtual Environment (MoVE). MoVE aggregates all incoming data streams from each vehicle to provide a comprehensive picture of the scenario with a live 2D map display of all vehicles and a browser-based table to present the data. The RTDD provides real time data thus ensuring complete mission execution and confirmation of sensor performance. Therefore, the RTDD is a critical component of the instrumented aircraft and an overall successful multi-vehicle data collection effort

Robust Control Techniques for State Tracking in the Presence of Variable Time Delays

In this paper, a distributed driver-in-the-Ioop and hardware-in-the-Ioop simulator is described with a driver on a motion simulator at the U.S. Army TARDEC Ground Vehicle Simulation Laboratory (GVSL). Realistic power system response is achieved by linking the driver in the GVSL with a full-sized hybrid electric power system located 2,450 miles away at the TARDEC Power and Energy Systems Integration Laboratory (P&E SIL), which is developed and maintained by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The goal is to close the loop between the GVSL and P&E SIL over the Internet to provide a realistic driving experience in addition to realistic power system results. In order to preserve a valid and safe hardware-in-the-Ioop experiment, the states of the GVSL must track the states of the P&E SIL. In a distributed control system utilizing the open Internet, the communications channel is a primary source of uncertainty and delay that can degrade the overall system performance and stability. The presence of a cross-country network delay and the unavoidable differences between the P&E SIL hardware and GVSL model will cause the GVSL states and P&E SIL states to diverge without any additional action. Thus, two robust strategies for state convergence are developed and presented in this paper. The first strategy is a non-linear Sliding Mode control scheme. The second strategy is an H-infinity control scheme. Both schemes are implemented in simulation, and both schemes show promising results for state convergence in the presence of variable cross-country time delays

Internet Enabled Remote Driving of a Combat Hybrid Electric Power System for Duty Cycle Measurement

This paper describes a human-in-the-loop motion-based simulator interfaced to hybrid-electric power system hardware, both of which were used to measure the duty cycle of a combat vehicle in a virtual simulation environment. The project discussed is a greatly expanded follow-on to the experiment published in [1,7]. This paper is written in the context of [1,7] and therefore highlights the enhancements. The most prominent of these enhancements is the integration (in real-time) of the Power & Energy System Integration Lab (P&E SIL) with a motion base simulator by means of a “long haul” connection over the Internet (a geographical distance of 2,450 miles). The P&E SIL is, therefore, able to respond to commands issued by the vehicle’s driver and gunner and, in real-time, affect the simulated vehicle’s performance. By thus incorporating hardware into a human-in-the-loop experiment, TARDEC engineers were able to evaluate the actual power system as it responds to actual human behavior. After introducing the project, the paper describes the simulation environment which was assembled to run the experiment. It emphasizes the design of the experiment as well as the approach, challenges and issues involved in creating a real-time link between the motion-base simulator and the P&E SIL. It presents the test results and briefly discusses on-going and future work

Battery Thermal Management for Hybrid Electric Vehicles Using a Phase-Change Material Cold Plate

A thermal management system for an energy storage device that includes a liquid-cooled cold plate made of phase-change material changeable from a substantially solid form to a sub­stantially liquid form upon absorbing heat generated by the energy storage device. The system may be useful as a thermal management solution for energy storage systems (ESS) in hybrid-electric vehicles (HEY)