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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are aerial platforms with diverse applications. Their design is shaped by specific constraints, driving a multidisciplinary, iterative process encompassing aerodynamics, structures, flight mechanics and other domains. This paper describes the design of a fixed-wing UAV tailored to competition requirements. The payload comprises golf balls with specific weight and dimensions. The requirements included maintaining a thrust-to-empty weight ratio below 1 and achieving a high payload fraction, calculated as the ratio of payload weight to total UAV weight. An optimization approach was introduced, altering the conventional UAV sizing process to enhance the payload fraction. This was achieved by adjusting the design points within the solution space derived from constraint analysis.

In the architecture of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), a crucial component responsible for the propulsion system is the electric motor. Over the years, different types of electric motors, including Brushless Direct Current (BLDC), have supported the UAV’s propulsion system in diverse configurations. However, in the context of flux flow, the Radial Flux Permanent Magnet Motor (RFPMM) has been given more priority than the Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Motor (AFPMM) due to its sustainability in design and construction. Nevertheless, the AFPMM boasts higher speed, power density, lower weight, and greater efficiency than the RFPMM, because of its shorter flux path and the absence of end-turn winding. Therefore, this paper focuses on conducting a suitability analysis of an AFPMM as a shaft-connected propeller-mounted motor, with the intention of replacing the RFPMM in UAV applications.

Uncrewed Aerial vehicles are useful for a multitude of applications in today’s age, covering a wide variety of fields such as defense, environmental science, meteorology, emergency responders, search and rescue operations, entertainment robotics, etc. Different types of aircrafts such as fixed wing UAVs, rotor wing UAVs are used for the mentioned applications depending upon the application requirements. One such category of UAVs is the lighter-than-air aircrafts, that provide their own set of advantages over the other types of UAVs. Blimps are among the participants of the lighter-than-air category that are expected to offer advantages such as higher endurance and range, and safer and more comfortable Human-machine-Interaction, etc. as compared to fixed wing and rotor wing UAVs due to their design. A ROS (Robot Operating System) based control system was developed for controlling the blimp.

Innovations in Mobility: Aerospace Digital Summit aerospace mobility leaders convene leverage cutting-edge technology, design, develop safety measures, integrate current regulations, suggest future policies, expand markets, diversify revenue streams.

Innovations in Mobility: Aerospace Digital Summitaerospace mobility leaders convene leverage cutting-edge technology, design, develop safety measures, integrate current regulations, suggest future policies, expand markets, diversify revenue streams.

Innovations in Mobility: Aerospace Digital Summit aerospace mobility leaders convene leverage cutting-edge technology, design, develop safety measures, integrate current regulations, suggest future policies, expand markets, diversify revenue streams.

This SAE Aerospace Standard (AS) provides the general performance, design, installation, test, development, and quality assurance requirements for the flight control related functions of the Vehicle Management Systems (VMS) of military piloted aircraft. It also provides specification guidance for the flight control interfaces with other systems and subsystems of the aircraft.

With the development of internet technology and autonomous vehicles (AVs), the multimodal transportation and distribution model based on AVs will be a typical application paradigm in the smart city scenario. Before AVs carry out logistics distribution, it is necessary to plan a reasonable distribution path based on each customer point, and this is also known as Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP). Unlike traditional VRP, the urban logistics distribution process based on multimodal transportation mode will use a set of different types of AVs, mainly including autonomous ground vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It is worth pointing out that there is currently no research on combining the planning of AVs distribution paths with the trajectory planning of UAVs. To address this issue, this article establishes a bilevel programming model. The upper-level model aims to plan the optimal delivery plan for AVs, while the lower-level model aims to plan a driving trajectory for UAVs.

With the development of hardware and control theory, the application of quadcopters is constantly expanding. Quadcopters have emerged in many fields, including transportation, exploration, and object grabbing and placement. These application scenarios require accurate, stable, and rapid control, and a suitable dynamic model is one of the prerequisites. At present, many works are related to it, most of which are modeled using the Newton-Euler method. Some works have also adopted other methods, including the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian methods. This article proposes a new method that solves the Hamiltonian equation of a quadcopter expressed in quasi-coordinate. The external forces and motion of the body are expressed in the quasi-coordinate system of the body, and solved through the Hamiltonian equation. This method simplifies operations and improves computational efficiency. Additionally, a single pendulum is attached to the quadcopter to simulate application scenarios.

In recent years, the burgeoning applications of hydrogen fuel cells have ignited a growing trend in their integration within the transportation sector, with a particular focus on their potential use in multi-rotor drones. The heightened mass-based energy density of fuel cells positions them as promising alternatives to current lithium battery-powered drones, especially as the demand for extended flight durations increases. This article undertakes a comprehensive exploration, comparing the performance of lithium batteries against air-cooled fuel cells, specifically within the context of multi-rotor drones with a 3.5kW power requirement. The study reveals that, for the specified power demand, air-cooled fuel cells outperform lithium batteries, establishing them as a more efficient solution.

Data-driven driving safety assessment is crucial in understanding the insights of traffic accidents caused by dangerous driving behaviors. Meanwhile, quantifying driving safety through well-defined metrics in real-world naturalistic driving data is also an important step for the operational safety assessment of automated vehicles (AV). However, the lack of flexible data acquisition methods and fine-grained datasets has hindered progress in this critical area. In response to this challenge, we propose a novel dataset for driving safety metrics analysis specifically tailored to car-following situations. Leveraging state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, we employ drones to capture high-resolution video data at 12 traffic scenes in the Phoenix metropolitan area. After that, we developed advanced computer vision algorithms and semantically annotated maps to extract precise vehicle trajectories and leader-follower relations among vehicles.

Creating a 3-dimensional environment using imagery from small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS, or unmanned aerial vehicles -UAVs, or colloquially, drones) has grown in popularity recently in accident reconstruction. In this process, ground control points are placed at an accident scene and an sUAS is flown over an accident site and a series of overlapping, high resolution images are taken of the site. Those images and ground control points are then loaded onto a computer and processed using photogrammetric software to create a 3-dimensional point cloud or mesh of the site, which then can be used as a tool for recreating an accident scene. Many software packages have been created to perform these tasks, and in this paper, the authors examine RealityCapture, a newer photogrammetric software, to evaluate its accuracy for the use in accident reconstruction. It is the authors’ experience that RealityCapture may at times produce point clouds with less noise that other software packages.

Emergency personnel and first responders have the opportunity to document crash scenes while evidence is still recent. The growth of the drone market and the efficiency of documentation with drones has led to an increasing prevalence of aerial photography for incident sites. These photographs are generally of high resolution and contain valuable information including roadway evidence such as tire marks, gouge marks, debris fields, and vehicle rest positions. Being able to accurately map the captured evidence visible in the photographs is a key process in creating a scaled crash-scene diagram. Image rectification serves as a quick and straightforward method for producing a scaled diagram. This study evaluates the precision of the photo rectification process under diverse roadway geometry conditions and varying camera incidence angles.

eFuels: An Alternative to the Alternative Synthetic fuels promise low-carbon alternatives, but can they deliver? WCX 2024: Come for the AI, stay for the optimism AI top of mind at SAE's annual technical mobility conference. A Peek at Electrify America's Charging Station Future Twenty DC fast chargers and amenities are available, but the most important detail is that everything works. Full speed ahead for second-generation Indy autonomous racers Major hardware and software upgrades underpin the Indy Autonomous Challenge racecar for 2024, proving self-driving vehicle capabilities at triple-digit speeds.

This SAE Aerospace Information Report (AIR) describes the Architecture Framework for Unmanned Systems (AFUS). AFUS comprises a Conceptual View, a Capabilities View, and an Interoperability View. The Conceptual View provides definitions and background for key terms and concepts used in the unmanned systems domain. The Capabilities View uses terms and concepts from the Conceptual View to describe capabilities of unmanned systems and of other entities in the unmanned systems domain. The Interoperability View provides guidance on how to design and develop systems in a way that supports interoperability.