Comparison of Adaptive Control Architectures for Flutter Suppression

A study is conducted to derive and implement a state feedback model reference adaptive control (MRAC) solutions for a 2-D aeroelastic nonlinear system and in evaluating the robustness of different control strategies to damage leading to the deterioration of the structural stiffness characteristics. The standard MRAC, a modified MRAC and the adaptive controller are the three model reference adaptive control solutions analyzed. The standard direct MRAC solution serves as the threshold to assess whether or not the more complex algorithms are an effective improvement to it

Maintenance in aeronautics in an Industry 4.0 context: The role of Augmented Reality and Additive Manufacturing

The paper broadly addresses how Industry 4.0 program drivers will impact maintenance in aviation. Specifically, Industry 4.0 practices most suitable to aeronautical maintenance are selected, and a detailed exposure is provided. Advantages and open issues are widely discussed and case studies dealing with realistic scenarios are illustrated to support what has been proposed by authors. The attention has been oriented towards Augmented Reality and Additive Manufacturing technologies, which can support maintenance tasks and spare parts production, respectively. The intention is to demonstrate that Augmented Reality and Additive Manufacturing are viable tools in aviation maintenance, and while a strong effort is necessary to develop an appropriate regulatory framework, mandatory before the wide-spread introduction of these technologies in the aerospace systems maintenance process, there has been a great interest and pull from the industry sector

Practical considerations for the design of an aeroelastic energy harvester

Achieving the optimal balance between weight and energy consumption during flight mission remains a challenge for the design of very efficient high altitude long endurance aircrafts (HALE). These aircraft are intended to have flight missions that can range from 30 to 90 days. Composite materials are used to provide the structural integrity of the aircraft while minimizing its weight. Typically composites are used in long and slender structural elements of the HALE and are the main drivers of dynamic aeroelastic instabilities, even at low speed. This is due to the higher structural flexibility they introduce. Therefore, in order to respond to the demand of HALE aircrafts of having a wider amount of energy on board, without any substantial weight penalization, an experimental piezoelectric wing have been designed with the aim of exploiting aeroelastic instabilities or any other type of induced vibrations to generate electric energy directly on board. The numerical model of the piezoelectric wing, presented in this paper, is built starting from the assumptions of the 3D Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and of the strip theory for the aerodynamic loads. A preliminary sensitivity study was carried out, over the flutter solutions, for the identification of a suitable experimental prototype, to be used for modal and wind tunnel tests. The test campaign showed a good agreement between numerical and experiments results, highlighting, above all, the encouraging results in terms of energy harvesting and in terms of the exploitation potential of the piezoelectric design in the dynamic of structures

Large theta_13 from a model with broken L_e-L_mu-L_tau symmetry

Recent data in the neutrino sector point towards a relatively large value of the reactor angle, incompatible with a vanishing theta_ 13 at about 3 sigma. In order to explain such a result, we propose a SUSY model based on the broken L_e-L_mu-L_tau symmetry, where large deviations from the symmetric limit theta_12 = pi/4, tan(theta_23) \sim O(1) and theta_13 = 0 mainly come from the charged lepton sector. We show that a description of all neutrino data is possible if the charged lepton mass matrix has a special pattern of complex matrix elements.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. v2: comments and references added, as published in JHE

Measurements and tests on FBK silicon sensors with an optimized electronic design for a CTA camera

In October 2013, the Italian Ministry approved the funding of a Research & Development (R&D) study, within the "Progetto Premiale TElescopi CHErenkov made in Italy (TECHE)", devoted to the development of a demonstrator for a camera for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) consortium. The demonstrator consists of a sensor plane based on the Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) technology and on an electronics designed for signal sampling. Preliminary tests on a matrix of sensors produced by the Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK-Trento, Italy) and on electronic prototypes produced by SITAEL S.p.A. will be presented. In particular, we used different designs of the electronics in order to optimize the output signals in terms of tail cancellation. This is crucial for applications where a high background is expected, as for the CTA experiment.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures; Proceedings of the 10th Workshop on Science with the New Generation of High-Energy Gamma-ray experiments (SciNeGHE) - PoS(Scineghe2014)00

Active Flow Control of Lifting Surface With Flap-Current Activities and Future Directions

The main objective is to develop effective control strategies for separation control of an airfoil with a single hinge flap. The specific objectives are: Develop an active control architecture for flow control around an airfoil with flap. Design, fabricate, a wind tunnel test of a high lift wing (with flap) with integrated actuators and sensors. Design, development and fabrication of synthetic jet actuators. Develop appropriate control strategy for application to the airfoil. Wind tunnel testing of the high lift wing at various angles of attack and flap positions with closed loop control

UFT/leucovorin and oxaliplatin alternated with UFT/leucovorin and irinotecan in metastatic colorectal cancer

A total of 41 metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) patients received tegafur/uracil (UFT)+leucovorin (LV)+oxaliplatin alternated with UFT/LV+irinotecan. The overall response rate was 58.5% (95% confidence interval, 42.2-73.3%), and the median progression-free survival was 8.8 months. There were no grade 4 toxicities; 12 patients (29%) experienced grade 3 diarrhoea. There were no cases of hand-foot syndrome. This alternating regimen seems to be effective and well tolerated in the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic CRC

A Prototype of a New Generation Readout ASIC in 65 nm CMOS for Pixel Detectors at HL-LHC

The foreseen High-Luminosity upgrade at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will constitute a new frontier for particle physics after year 2024, demanding for the installation of new silicon pixel detectors able to withstand unprecedented track densities and radiation levels in the inner tracking systems of current general-purpose experiments. This paper describes the implementation of a new-generation pixel chip demonstrator using a commercial 65 nm CMOS technology and targeting HL-LHC specifications. It was designed as part of the Italian INFN CHIPIX65 project and in close synergy with the international CERN RD53 collaboration on 65 nm CMOS. The prototype is composed of a matrix of 64×64 pixels with 50 μm × 50 μm cells featuring a compact design, low-noise and low-power performance. The pixel array integrates two different analogue front-end architectures working in parallel, one with asynchronous and one with synchronous hit discriminators. Common characteristics are a compact layout able to fit into half the pixel size, low-noise performance (ENC < 100 e− RMS for 50 fF input capacitance), below 5 μW/pixel power consumption, linear charge measurements up to 30 ke− input charge using Time-over-Threshold (ToT) encoding and leakage current compensation up to 50 nA per pixel. A novel region-based digital architecture has been designed in order to ensure > 99% efficiency for expected 3 GHz/cm2 hit rate, 1 MHz trigger rate and 12.5 μs trigger latency at HL-LHC. Pixels have been organized into regions of 4×4 cells and a common synthesized logic shared among all pixels provides a centralized memory for latency buffering, performs the trigger matching and handles the local configuration. The simulated particle inefficiency for this architecture is below 0.1% under nominal HL-LHC conditions. All global biases and voltages required by analogue front-ends are generated on-chip using 10-bit programmable DACs. Bias currents and voltages can be monitored by a 12-bit ADC. A bandgap voltage reference circuit provides a stable reference voltage for all these blocks. The readout of triggered data is based on replicated FIFOs placed at the chip periphery. Data are finally sent off-chip with 8b/10b encoding using a high-speed serializer. Triggerless and debug operating modes are also supported. Chip configuration and slow-control are performed through fully-duplex synchronous Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) master/slave transactions. The I/O interface uses custom-designed JEDEC-compliant SLVS transmitters and receivers. All blocks and analogue front-ends have been silicon-proven during a previous prototyping phase and were demonstrated to be radiation tolerant up to 580 Mrad Total Ionizing Dose (TID) or beyond. The CHIPIX65 demonstrator was submitted for fabrication on July 2016. It was received back from the foundry on October 2016 and preliminary experimental characterizations started