Mohit Gupta

"3-D Stress-Strain Histories for Composite Beams in Nonlinear Transient Structural Analysis"

This work demonstrates the capability of in-house tools developed in Prof. Hodges' group to obtain the 3-D stress-strain histories for composite beams undergoing dynamic loading in a nonlinear transient structural analysis. In the present work, we used isotropic and composite cantilever beams to demonstrate the results, which have been compared with results obtained from commercially available FEA tools such as ANSYS. It is observed that the use of in-house tools, VABS, and GEBT for the transient structural analysis is significantly advantageous over 3-D FEM. The time required for such an analysis greatly reduces from the order of multiple hours to a few minutes just for an isotropic beam. This will no doubt provide a cutting edge tool for preliminary structural designs as the preliminary design relies on approximations and simplistic analytical models which are neither reliable nor advantageous over tools based on high fidelity theory.

Alaric Gregoire

"Signal Processing and Software Development for the RANGE CubeSat Mission"

As Georgia Tech research groups continue to develop space systems in the years ahead, a robust and sophisticated ground support system will be an invaluable tool in tracking and maintaining simultaneous communications with several orbiting bodies. This research concerns creating software to track and communicate with RANGE, Georgia Tech’s first CubeSat mission, and diagnosing hardware and software failures as they occur to build up a capable satellite ground station infrastructure. Signal processing tools like the Python-based GNU Radio were used to develop scripts to decode radio signals to binary packets, and knowledge of the data packet formatting is used to remove data frames and output actual sensor measurements. Beyond realizing the science objectives of the RANGE mission itself, a focus is also placed on developing the software in a robust way to allow future automation of manual processes, and noting the difficulties with RANGE to inform the development of future flight software and communication system designs. This presentation will introduce GNU Radio software to demonstrate the general method of signal processing with RANGE, and an introduction to the ground station operations in Van Leer.

Jared Mehnert

“Designing Systems of Systems: The Coupling between Sensing Capabilities & Agent Behaviors” 

Attritable Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have been gathering interest as reusable military platforms that fulfill mission requirements yet are low enough in cost to be expendable. With a large array of possible sensor suites available, the on-board sensors carried by some or all of these platforms are a large driving factor in the cost and design of these vehicles. This presentation will cover methodologies being used to explore this large design space and discover the correlation between sensor choice, behavior of the vehicle swarm, mission effectiveness, and overall cost. 

Raghul Manosh

"Characterization Of Transient Blowout Dynamics Of A Swirl Stabilized Flame Using Simultaneous OH And CH2O PLIF"

Gas turbine engines have operational limits that are heavily governed by the operational limits of the combustor. One of the key concerns while operating a combustor is the possibility of rich or lean blowoff. Focused research is done to study the lean blow off phenomenon, particularly to aid in its prediction so as to enhance the operational envelopes of gas turbine engines. This presentation will deal with methods to better characterize lean blowoff in an unwrapped annular swirling flow combustor.

Rohan Thatavarthi 

"Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) Development & Verification for RECONSO CubeSat Mission"

The RECONnaissance of Space Objects (RECONSO) is a low-cost CubeSat mission being developed to help catalog unknown objects in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). With the lowered cost and increase in missions to LEO, space debris becomes a hazard that can jeopardize satellite missions and restrict access to space. To support the RECONSO mission, a 3-axis inertial Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) is being designed, integrated, and tested in the Space Systems Design Lab (SSDL). This presentation summarizes the current status of the RECONSO ADCS, verification activities, and results. First, sun sensors were built in-house alongside algorithms to convert raw sensor output. An Extended Kalman Filter was created for orbit determination. Control algorithms are being developed to meet the payload’s pointing requirements. Finally, a subsystem verification test is being produced to ensure that subsystem requirements are met. 

Allan Zhang 

"Development of an Electrical Power System for the TARGIT CubeSat"

As more ambitious scientific experiments are placed onto CubeSat missions, there is an important balance to strike between scientific payload and system necessities required for the CubeSat to operate. One of the most important of these necessities is the electrical power system, the heart of the satellite. This presentation outlines the design and decision-making process behind the electrical architecture of the TARGIT mission through trade studies, simulations, and testing. Beyond the mission timeline of TARGIT, a focus was made on developing an effective method of solar panel fabrication for future Georgia Tech CubeSat missions. 

Calvin Phillips

"Utilization of PLA in a Closed-Loop Space Based Agriculture System for Human Exploration"

The large mass required for human caloric intake can be reduced with on-site cultivation of agricultural products. This would reduce the launch mass and volume requirement to store the food supplies. Due to the restricted water availability on the prime destinations for human exploration, aeroponic technology has the capability of using 95% less water than traditional farming techniques and 40% less water than hydroponics. While limited in the variety of crops that can be grown, high lactic acid produce, such as soybeans, have high promise for protein requirements as well as conversion to PLA. The utilization of produce that produces PLA allow for a reduction of resupply mass for large structural components and replacement parts. This is accomplished by additive manufacturing on-site after conversion to PLA to expand the agriculture structure to support higher populations of astronauts. Therefore, such a system would only require an initial “seed” to then self-expand beyond its initial infrastructure. While this system would not completely supplement the human dietary needs, it is a decent start for further development of human exploration and provides a frame work for other agricultural technologies such as aquaponics, hydroponics, and soil-based farming to be developed during the mission time.

Mahalakshmi Srinivasan

"Effect of Enhanced Flight Vision Systems on Pilot Performance"

Due to a need to compensate for missing visual cues in IFR flight, Enhanced Flight Vision Systems (EFVS) comprised of a variety of sensors are gaining popularity. In this presentation, we will demonstrate the effects of the portrayal of runway markings and sensor range limitations of those systems on pilot performance in terms of relevant approach and landing metrics as well as pilot workload. This study was conducted through human trials on a general aviation flight simulator in the Cognitive Engineering Center and the results have implications for the types of visual cues pilot’s need as well as the adverse effects of not providing those cues. Ultimately, this research serves as a first glance at how EFVS impacts pilots’ information processing that will require more in-depth analysis now that some focal points have been identified.

Kelsey Pepper

"Flame Visualization of Hall Thruster Propellant Distributors"

The anode of a Hall Thruster is a two-purpose component that serves to both distribute propellant into a Hall thruster discharge chamber and complete the electrical plasma circuit. This propellant distributor must uniformly distribute neutral propellant around the circumference of the thruster discharge channel to provide an optimal environment for propellant ionization and acceleration. In this work, we apply a previously developed premixed-flame visualization method to verify the uniformity of newly manufactured anodes. Additionally, we investigate the presence of flow uniformity degradation of previously inspected anodes over the lifetime of Hall thruster operation. The visualization method used correlates the image intensity of a premixed flame at each azimuthal location to the relative flow density across the propellant distributor.

Firas Sheikh

"Convergent Aeronautics Solutions (CAS) for Lithium-Oxygen Batteries in NASA Electric Aircraft (LiON)"

The paramount obstacle to enable NASA’s vision of Green Aviation is the extraordinary energy storage requirements for electric aircraft. Lithium-Air batteries have the largest theoretical energy storage capacity of any battery technology and if realized will transform the global transportation system. A significant problem for current Lithium-Air batteries is large scale decomposition of the battery electrolyte during operation leading to battery failure after a handful of charge/discharge cycles. Thus, development of rechargeable, large scale, ultra-high energy, and safe Lithium-Air batteries require highly stable electrolytes that are impervious to decomposition under operating conditions. The ultimate goal for this research is to discover the “design rules” for ultra-stable electrolytes for Lithium-Air batteries. These high energy batteries have the potential to meet the energy storage challenges of current and future NASA aeronautics and space missions in addition to many terrestrial transportation applications.

Haotian Sun

"Study of Oxy-Combustion at Elevated Pressures in a Premixed System Using Reactor Network Modeling"

Chemical reactor network (CRN) modeling allows investigation of t he interaction of com­bustion with simplified  flow  characteristics  so  that parametric  design  studies  can  be  performed in a cost-effective manner. In this study, CRN modeling  is  used  to  evaluate the  performance of an axially-staged premixed combustor under  practically  relevant  high-pressure  operating  con­ditions. First , the computational approach is established by comparing the results against the available experimental and numerical data. Afterward , a detailed parametric investigation is conducted to characterize the role of auto ignition, 0 2 as an oxidizer instead of air , CO 2 as the crossflow, and react ants st aging ratio at different operating pressures to establish near-optimal operating conditions for an  axially-staged  premix ed combustion  device.  The  parametric  studies are perform ed by using a skeletal  mechanism comprising of 19 species  and  93 reaction s,  which is shown to predict results matching the more detailed USC [?  ]  mechanism. The  near-optimal design condition, which is characterized  in  terms  of  a  reduced  level  of  pollutant  (CO)  emission is found to correspond to oxy-combustion at a high pressure (100 - 200 atm) with a hot CO2 as cross-flow (50% or higher by mass) at the inlet of the first stage of the device.

Ali Talaksi

"Structural Iterative Design for the RECONSO CubeSat Mission"

As satellites have become more cost-effective and are higher in demand, the role of CubeSats has become increasingly important. RECONSO is a student-led CubeSat mission that will autonomously detect and track space debris for 6 months in Low Earth Orbit.  Throughout the duration of the mission timeline, the structures subsystem team has been working to iteratively update the satellite design in order to meet all the specifications for other subsystems.  The structures team has supported this design process by performing a number of tasks: using SolidWorks to model the satellite, creating engineering drawings to effectively communicate design changes, contributing to the manufacturing and fabrication of various parts, and providing documentation to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).  This presentation will cover the past and current state of the CubeSat, and the individual tasks that were completed to support the project.

Muhannad Eladl

"Validation of a Radiofrequency Generator for a Heritage Ion Thruster"

When designing an ion thruster, there are two main aspects to address: efficiently ionizing the propellant and accelerating the ionized propellant to produce thrust. In this work, we seek to experimentally validate the performance of a recently developed radio frequency generator in ionizing xenon propellant in comparison to current designs. The performance will be analyzed in terms of efficiency parameters defined in a theoretical model of the average beam ion energy cost of an ion thruster. The radio frequency generator performance is characterized under high-vacuum conditions via plasma diagnostic measurements. Additionally, this work seeks to investigate the validity of certain assumptions made during the experimental procedure.

William Stock

"Electrical Power System for RECONnaissance of Space Objects (RECONSO) Cube Satellite"

RECONnaissance of Space Objects (RECONSO) is a multidisciplinary cube satellite project worked on as part of the Space Systems Design Lab (SSDL) and the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL).  The project combines students from several different engineering programs such as mechanical, aerospace, electrical, and computer engineering.  The purpose of the satellite is to demonstrate a low cost and simple method to improve situational awareness of objects in low Earth orbit.  The satellite will fill a current gap in space debris detection for objects between 1 to 10 centimeters.  The mission is designed last over a 6 month period and it will be launched as a secondary payload.  The satellite operates by using a low light camera to detect and track objects that are moving relative to the star field in the background.  These tracks would then be sent back to the ground and compared with existing catalogs of space objects.  It will primarily focus on observation of regions with high densities of space debris such as around the poles.