Space Dynamics Laboratory Payload Challenge: Autonomous Water Sampling UAV

The following report has been completed over the course of the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters at The University of Akron by Joseph P. Stack (Aerospace Systems Engineering), Thomas J. Wheeler (Mechanical Engineering) and Zachary M. Williams (Mechanical Engineering). The purpose of this project was to create a payload system for the Akronauts Rocket Design Team to use at the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) Spaceport America Cup. The Competition as a challenge that is sponsored by Space Dynamics Laboratory specifically regarding payload systems. The challenge in very open-ended and allows student to identify their own scientific experiment and design it to a form that can fit in the launch vehicle. The team chose to model the experiment for the Senior Design and Honors Research project at UA. The project is an autonomous UAV that deploys from the launch vehicle during descent, flies to a nearby body of water, collects a water sample, and flies back to base camp. This is modeled after a NASA mission planned for 2025 that will send a quadcopter to Saturn’s moon Titan. The team scaled down the mission objectives for the sake of prototyping and will focus on the autonomous flight and the sample collection. Several vehicle options and sample types were considered in the early design phase. Ultimately a quadcopter that can obtain a water sample via a small DC pump and nylon tubing. The UAV will have a 3D printed body with a variety of off-the-shelf components that are compatible with software packages that the team has access to

Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus for Firefighter with a Permanent Stoma

The purpose of this project was to create a unique SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) for a firefighter named Chris Gauer. This prototype consists of a SCBA headgear connected to a polycarbonate-formed stoma mask with a medical-grade sanitary silicone hose

Measuring the Effect of Job Creation Tax Credits

Measuring the Effect of Job Creation Tax Credits. A presentation by Laura Wheeler (FRC Senior Research Associate) at the annual […

Generalized Matching Preclusion in Bipartite Graphs

The matching preclusion number of a graph with an even number of vertices is the minimum number of edges whose deletion results in a graph that has no perfect matchings. For many interconnection networks, the optimal such sets are precisely sets of edges incident to a single vertex. The conditional matching preclusion number of a graph was introduced to look for obstruction sets beyond these, and it is defined as the minimum number of edges whose deletion results in a graph with neither isolated vertices nor perfect matchings. In this paper we generalize this concept to get a hierarchy of stronger matching preclusion properties in bipartite graphs, and completely characterize such properties of complete bipartite graphs and hypercubes

Methane Post-Processing and Hydrogen Separation for Spacecraft Oxygen Loop Closure

State-of-the-art life support oxygen recovery technology on the International Space Station is based on the Sabatier reaction where only about half of the oxygen required for the crew is recovered from metabolic carbon dioxide (CO2). The Sabatier reaction produces water as the primary product and methane as a byproduct. Oxygen recovery is constrained by both the limited availability of reactant hydrogen from water electrolysis and Sabatier methane (CH4) being vented as a waste product resulting in a continuous loss of reactant hydrogen. Post-processing methane with the Plasma Pyrolysis Assembly (PPA) to recover this hydrogen has the potential to substantially increase oxygen recovery and thus dramatically reduce the logistical challenges associated with oxygen resupply. The PPA decomposes methane into predominantly hydrogen and acetylene. A purification system is necessary to purify hydrogen before it is recycled back to the Sabatier reactor. Testing and evaluation of acetylene removal systems and PPA system architectures are presented and discussed

Uniqueness of Flat Spherically Symmetric Spacelike Hypersurfaces Admitted by Spherically Symmetric Static Spactimes

It is known that spherically symmetric static spacetimes admit a foliation by {\deg}at hypersurfaces. Such foliations have explicitly been constructed for some spacetimes, using different approaches, but none of them have proved or even discussed the uniqueness of these foliations. The issue of uniqueness becomes more important due to suitability of {\deg}at foliations for studying black hole physics. Here {\deg}at spherically symmetric spacelike hy- persurfaces are obtained by a direct method. It is found that spherically symmetric static spacetimes admit {\deg}at spherically symmetric hypersurfaces, and that these hypersurfaces are unique up to translation under the time- like Killing vector. This result guarantees the uniqueness of {\deg}at spherically symmetric foliations for such spacetimes.Comment: 10 page