Pines, Darryll J. | Engineering Papers

NASA NTRS2015

Method and System for Determining Relative Displacement and Heading for Navigation

A system and method for determining a location of a mobile object is provided. The system determines the location of the mobile object by determining distances between a plurality of sensors provided on a first and second movable parts of the mobile object. A stride length, heading, and separation distance between the first and second movable parts are computed based on the determined distances and the location of the mobile object is determined based on the computed stride length, heading, and separation distance.

Sheikh, Suneel Ismail↗

NASA NTRS2005

Biomimetic mechanism for micro aircraft

A biomimetic pitching and flapping mechanism including a support member, at least two blade joints for holding blades and operatively connected to the support member. An outer shaft member is concentric with the support member, and an inner shaft member is concentric with the outer shaft member. The mechanism allows the blades of a small-scale rotor to be actuated in the flap and pitch degrees of freedom. The pitching and the flapping are completely independent from and uncoupled to each other. As such, the rotor can independently flap, or independently pitch, or flap and pitch simultaneously with different amplitudes and/or frequencies. The mechanism can also be used in a non-rotary wing configuration, such as an ornithopter, in which case the rotational degree of freedom would be suppressed.

Pines, Darryll J.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Planetary Transmission Diagnostics

This report presents a methodology for detecting and diagnosing gear faults in the planetary stage of a helicopter transmission. This diagnostic technique is based on the constrained adaptive lifting algorithm. The lifting scheme, developed by Wim Sweldens of Bell Labs, is a time domain, prediction-error realization of the wavelet transform that allows for greater flexibility in the construction of wavelet bases. Classic lifting analyzes a given signal using wavelets derived from a single fundamental basis function. A number of researchers have proposed techniques for adding adaptivity to the lifting scheme, allowing the transform to choose from a set of fundamental bases the basis that best fits the signal. This characteristic is desirable for gear diagnostics as it allows the technique to tailor itself to a specific transmission by selecting a set of wavelets that best represent vibration signals obtained while the gearbox is operating under healthy-state conditions. However, constraints on certain basis characteristics are necessary to enhance the detection of local wave-form changes caused by certain types of gear damage. The proposed methodology analyzes individual tooth-mesh waveforms from a healthy-state gearbox vibration signal that was generated using the vibration separation (synchronous signal-averaging) algorithm. Each waveform is separated into analysis domains using zeros of its slope and curvature. The bases selected in each analysis domain are chosen to minimize the prediction error, and constrained to have the same-sign local slope and curvature as the original signal. The resulting set of bases is used to analyze future-state vibration signals and the lifting prediction error is inspected. The constraints allow the transform to effectively adapt to global amplitude changes, yielding small prediction errors. However, local wave-form changes associated with certain types of gear damage are poorly adapted, causing a significant change in the prediction error. The constrained adaptive lifting diagnostic algorithm is validated using data collected from the University of Maryland Transmission Test Rig and the results are discussed.

Lewicki, David G.↗