Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Hover”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 739 records · Page 41

PID self tuning control based on Mamdani fuzzy logic control for quadrotor stabilization

Quadrotor as one type of UAV have the ability to perform Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL). It allows the Quadrotor to be stationary hovering in the air. PID (Proportional Integral Derivative) control system is one of the control methods that are commonly used. It is usually used to optimize the Quadrotor stabilization at least based on the three Eulerian angles (roll, pitch, and yaw) as input parameters for the control system. The three constants of PID can be obtained in various methods. The simplest method is tuning manually. This method has several weaknesses. For example if the three constants are not exact, the resulting response will deviate from the desired result. By combining the methods of PID with fuzzy logic systems where human expertise is implemented into the machine language is expected to further optimize the control system.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

TORSIONAL OSCILLATIONS OF NONBARE STRANGE STARS

Strange stars are one of the possible compact stellar objects that can form after a supernova collapse. We consider a model of a strange star having an inner core in the color-flavor locked phase surmounted by a crystalline color superconducting (CCSC) layer. These two phases constitute the quarksphere, which we assume to be the largest and heaviest part of the strange star. The next layer consists of standard nuclear matter forming an ionic crust, hovering on the top of the quarksphere and prevented from falling by a strong dipolar electric field. The dipolar electric field arises because quark matter is confined in the quarksphere by the strong interaction, but electrons can leak outside forming an electron layer a few hundred fermi thick separating the ionic crust from the underlying quark matter. The ionic matter and the CCSC matter constitute two electromagnetically coupled crust layers. We study the torsional oscillations of these two layers. Remarkably, we find that if a fraction larger than 10{sup −4} of the energy of a Vela-like glitch is conveyed to a torsional oscillation, the ionic crust will likely break. The reason is that the very rigid and heavy CCSC crust layer will absorb only a small fraction of the glitch energy, leading to a large-amplitude torsional oscillation of the ionic crust. The maximum stress generated by the torsional oscillation is located inside the ionic crust and is very close to the star’s surface. This peculiar behavior leads to a much easier crust cracking than in standard neutron stars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Chromatic effects on the PSF and shear measurement for the Roman Space Telescope High-Latitude Wide Area Survey

Weak gravitational lensing (WL) is a key cosmological probe that requires precise measurement of galaxy images to infer shape distortions, or shear, and constrain cosmology. Accurate estimation of the point spread function (PSF) is crucial for shear measurement, but the wavelength dependence of the PSF introduces chromatic biases that can systematically impact shear inference. We focus on biases arising from spectral energy distribution (SED) differences between stars, used for PSF modelling, and galaxies, used for shear measurement. We investigate these effects in Roman’s four design reference mission WL bands (Y106, J129, H158, F184) and wide filter (W146). Using Roman-like image simulations, we quantify the induced shear biases and compare them to requirements on those biases. Multiplicative biases over all galaxies hover around ~0.2 per cent in the WL bands and 2 per cent in the wide filter, exceeding the mission requirement of |m| < 0.032 per cent and relaxed requirement of |m| < 0.1 per cent⁠. In individual redshift bins, biases can reach 0.4–0.9 per cent for the WL bands and 3–6 per cent for the wide filter. Additive biases remain acceptable in the WL bands but exceed systematic limits in the wide filter. We develop and test PSF-level corrections, showing that a first-order correction reduces biases within survey requirements for the WL bands; however, higher-order terms are necessary for the wide filter. Our results highlight the necessity of chromatic corrections for precision WL with Roman and provide a framework for mitigating these biases. Finally, we compare analytical colour-based corrections to self-organizing maps and find that both methods effectively reduce biases.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Optimizing Energy For Delivery Drones - A Comprehensive Tool Set For Drone Energy Calculation And Drone Fleet Optimization

This tool is intended to be deployed for potential customers to compare the energy profiles across various drone types/classes. The primary factors considered were design of the drone, the weight of the drone, the weight of the payload, and how the drone is flown. It has energy comparison metrics like "Drone (A) vs Drone (B) ", "Drone vs Ground Vehicle", "Drone Energy from delivery via landing versus hovering". It also includes the ability to determine the number of drones and batteries needed to optimally deliver goods from a chosen location to a set of destinations.

Mendadhala, Rohit [Idaho National Laboratory (INL)↗

Multiscale and Multivariate Transportation System Visualization for Shopping District Traffic and Regional Traffic

In this paper, we present a suite of visualization techniques for sensor-based transportation system data at different scales to facilitate the exploration of interconnected traffic dynamics at intersections and highways. Additionally, these techniques are designed for analyzing multivariate traffic data from radar-based highway sensors and camera-based intersection sensors recording turn movements and vehicle speed, in the Chattanooga Metropolitan Area, with the capability of (a) revealing multiscale mobility patterns using different levels of data aggregation (e.g., individual sensor for microscale, multiple sensors along a corridor for mesoscale, and a larger number of sensors across the region for macroscale visualization) at different intervals (e.g., 5-min intervals, time of day, full day, and day-of-the-week), and (b) exploring the spatial variation of multiple traffic-related variables (e.g., volumes, speeds, turn movements, and traffic light colors) provided by the sensors. We close with a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of our multiscale and multivariate visualization techniques. At microscale, we focused on intersection data from a shopping district around Shallowford Road in East Chattanooga. For mesoscale visualization, we studied the Shallowford Road corridor and an adjacent stretch of I-75. At macroscale, we included highway data from the Chattanooga Metropolitan Area. All visualizations were integrated into a web-based situational awareness tool to promote user access and interaction. At a minimum, each visualization provides the option for selecting dates for real-time (depending on sensor availability) and historical data, and additional information on hovering, though most provide more detailed information, including different views of the selected data, or interactive highlights.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Natural Reservoir Analysis in Low-Temperature Geothermal Play Fairway Analysis for the Appalachian Basin

The files included in this submission contain all data pertinent to the methods and results of this task's output, which is a cohesive multi-state map of all known potential geothermal reservoirs in our region, ranked by their potential favorability. Favorability is quantified using a new metric, Reservoir Productivity Index, as explained in the Reservoirs Methodology Memo (included in zip file). Shapefile and images of the Reservoir Productivity and Reservoir Uncertainty are included as well (hover over file display names to see actual file names in bottom-left corner of screen).

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Improvements in 2016 to Natural Reservoir Analysis in Low-Temperature Geothermal Play Fairway Analysis for the Appalachian Basin

*These files add to and replace same-named files found within Submission 559 (hover over file display names to see actual file names in bottom-left corner of screen)* The files included in this submission contain all data pertinent to the methods and results of a cohesive multi-state analysis of all known potential geothermal reservoirs in sedimentary rocks in the Appalachian Basin region, ranked by their potential favorability. Favorability is quantified using three metrics: Reservoir Productivity Index for water; Reservoir Productivity Index; Reservoir Flow Capacity. The metrics are explained in the Reservoirs Methodology Memo (included in zip file). The product represents a minimum spatial extent of potential sedimentary rock geothermal reservoirs. Only natural porosity and permeability were analyzed. Shapefile and images of the spatial distributions of these reservoir quality metrics and of the uncertainty on these metrics are included as well. UPDATE: Accompanying geologic reservoirs data may be found at: https://gdr.openei.org/submissions/881 (linked below).

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

2016 End of the year South Carolina PV soft cost and workforce development

A solar industry survey was given to professional installers who serve the South Carolina market in order to determine trends in costing, work force needs, and business demographics at the end of 2016. It was found that 70% of the respondents serve the residential sector, while only 7% of the total exclusively serves the residential market. The average size of residential installations remain near 9 kW-DC, while the average size of commercial and utility scale installations continue to grow to 378 kW-DC and 14.8 MW-DC, respectively. The total cost of these residential systems has hovered around $3.50/W-DC since the end of 2015, while commercial installations have dropped to $2.45/W-DC and utility scale installations have dropped to $1.49/W-DC. It is expected that the cost of utility scale installations will continue to drop as there are publically reported utility scale installations with contracted PPAs for less than 4¢/kWh. 52-60% of the cost is associated with hardware only depending upon sector.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Piezoelectric Nano-Optomechanical Systems

Lithium niobate, due to its material properties, is often used for optical waveguides, optical modulators, and other linear and nonlinear optical applications. In this research, we present monolithically integrated microdisk resonators with an integrated ground plane fabricated from a commercially purchased lithium niobate on insulator wafer. Using this architecture, we demonstrate excitation of a 167MHz mechanical resonance as well as electro-optic modulation of a 1.93THz optical mode in a free-standing whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonator. By hovering a signal probe above the disk while grounding the device using the integrated ground plane, an electric field can be applied across the device which both induces an electro-optic effect as well as drives mechanical motion via the piezoelectric effect. Detection of the mechanical mode and electro-optic shift was performed by coupling to the high quality factor (Q = 454,000) optical modes of the microresonator using a tapered optical fiber.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Characterizing the performance of a POPS miniaturized optical particle counter when operated on a quadcopter drone

We first validate the performance of the Portable Optical Particle Spectrometer (POPS), a small light-weight and high sensitivity optical particle counter, against a reference scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) for a month-long deployment in an environment dominated by biomass burning aerosols. Subsequently, we examine any biases introduced by operating the POPS on a quadcopter drone, a DJI Matrice 200 V2. We report the root mean square difference (RMSD) and mean absolute difference (MAD) in particle number concentrations (PNCs) when mounted on the UAV and operating on the ground and when hovering at 10 m. When wind speeds are low (less than 2.6 m s –1 ), we find only modest differences in the RMSDs and MADs of 5 % and 3 % when operating at 10 m altitude. When wind speeds are between 2.6 and 7.7 m s –1 the RMSDs and MADs increase to 26.2 % and 19.1 %, respectively, when operating at 10m altitude. No statistical difference in PNCs was detected when operating on the UAV in either ascent or descent. We also find size distributions of aerosols in the accumulation mode (defined by diameter, d, where 0.1 ≤ d ≤ 1 µm) are relatively consistent between measurements at the surface and measurements at 10 m altitude, while differences in the coarse mode (here defined by d > 1 µm) are universally larger. Our results suggest that the impact of the UAV rotors on the POPS PNCs are small at low wind speeds, but when operating under a higher wind speed of up to 7.6 m s –1 , larger discrepancies occur. In addition, it appears that the POPS measures sub-micron aerosol particles more accurately than super-micron aerosol particles when airborne on the UAV. These measurements lay the foundations for determining the magnitude of potential errors that might be introduced into measured aerosol particle size distributions and concentrations owing to the turbulence created by the rotors on the UAV.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Nasa research on the aerodynamics of jet vtol engine installations

This paper summarizes some of the more pertinent results of NASA investigations related to the aerodynamics of jet VTOL engine installations. It shows that there is a base loss in hovering due to suction forces creased on the underside of the fuselage by the entrainment of ambient air in the slipstream, and that the magnitude of this effect is related to the turbulence in the jet stream and its consequent rate of mixing with ambient air. It also shows that there are large lift losses and pitching moments due to jet-free-stream interference and that these characteristics can be significantly altered by proximity to the ground. And, finally, it shows that simple bellmouth inlets give good pressure recovery and low distortion for vertically mounted lift engines if the inlet lip radius is sufficiently large, but that such inlets are not suitable for windmill starting of the engines.

VTOL AIRCRAFT↗

Scaled lunar module jet erosion experiments

An experimental research program was conducted on the erosion of particulate surfaces by a jet exhaust. These experiments were scaled to represent the lunar module (LM) during landing. A conical cold-gas nozzle simulating the lunar module nozzle was utilized. The investigation was conducted within a large vacuum chamber by using gravel or glass beads as a simulated soil. The effects of thrust, descent speed, nozzle terminal height, particle size on crater size, and visibility during jet erosion were determined. Results indicate that, from an erosion and visibility standpoint, the best landing mode for a lunar module type of vehicle would involve: site inspection and selection above the incipient erosion height, and a fast descent to the highest drop-in altitude that the vehicle structure could withstand. A slow and cautious descent with hovering just above the lunar surface would greatly increase crater size and impair visibility.

Norman S Land↗

Fan V/STOL aircraft.

Hovering fan powered V/STOL aircraft effects on objects on ground, discussing related dust and debris problems

Mckinney, M. O.↗