211-220 of 265 results
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Bayesian Analysis of Stellar Evolution
PI Theodore von Hippel
Bayesian Analysis of Stellar Evolution is an international collaboration studying stellar evolution with an emphasis on stellar ages. We also develop and support a Bayesian software suite that recovers star cluster and stellar parameters from photometry, currently called BASE-9.
BASE-9 is useful for analyzing single-age, single-metallicity star clusters, binaries, or single stars, and for simulating such systems. BASE9 uses Markov chain Monte Carlo to estimate the posterior probability distribution for the age, metallicity, distance modulus, and line-of-sight absorption for a cluster, and for the mass, binary mass ratio, and cluster membership probability for every cluster member.Categories: Faculty-Staff
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Optimizing Countermeasures for Spaceflight-Induced Deconditioning
PI Christine Walck
This research focuses on understanding space deconditioning and developing comprehensive systems to mitigate the adverse physiological effects of microgravity on astronauts.
Spaceflight-induced deconditioning presents a major challenge to human health during and after long-duration missions, contributing to muscle atrophy, bone loss, cardiovascular dysfunction, and sensorimotor impairment. This research investigates the underlying mechanisms of physiological decline in microgravity and evaluates integrated mitigation strategies using a combination of ground-based analogs (e.g., head-down tilt, LBNP), biomechanical modeling, and real-time physiological monitoring. By developing a modular countermeasure system — featuring tools like the Lower Extremity Force Acquisition System (LEFAS) and personalized exercise protocols — we aim to preserve musculoskeletal and cardiovascular integrity throughout space missions. The findings contribute to NASA’s broader efforts in preparing astronauts for lunar and Mars exploration.Categories: Faculty-Staff
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Small UAS (sUAS) Mid-Air Collision (MAC) Likelihood
PI Ryan Wallace
CO-I Dothang Truong
CO-I Scott Winter
CO-I David Cross
This research focuses on sUAS MAC likelihood analysis with general aviation (GA) and commercial aircraft. Because severity research varies based on where a collision occurred on a manned aircraft, this likelihood research will not only look at the probability of a MAC, but also the likelihood of colliding with different parts of a manned aircraft.
Complete Mid-Air Collision (MAC) risk assessments require estimates of both collision severity and collision likelihood. This research focuses on sUAS MAC likelihood analysis with General Aviation (GA) and commercial aircraft. Because severity research varies based on where a collision occurred on a manned aircraft, this likelihood research will not only look at the probability of MAC but also the likelihood of colliding with different parts of a manned aircraft.
Categories: Faculty-Staff
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Best practices in teaching statistics and research methods within an aviation curriculum
PI Robert Walton
Student learning assessment is necessary at most universities, the question is whether or not student learning assessment though the use of tests can be turned into a less anxiety-provoking experience and, most ideally, into a summative learning experience for students. Using a three-test format student assessment this research examined an alternate testing paradigm, aiming directly at anxiety associated with tests and grades.
This research will examine an alternate testing paradigm, aiming directly at anxiety associated with tests and grades. The research question for this study is whether or not student assessment though the use of a traditional testing format could be made less anxiety provoking and, most ideally, be turned into a teaching/learning experience for students. Students in a statistics course will be assessed using a three-test format. Tests will be scored immediately after completion, with the student present and incorrect responses explained. The student can then retake an alternate exam and will receive the highest grade on any version of the test they take. Data will be examined for statistically-significant indicators from version 1, to 2, to 3 of the examinations.Categories: Faculty-Staff
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Air Traffic Controllers’ Occupational Stress and Performance in the Future Air Traffic Management
PI Hui Wang
CO-I Edward Mummert
As demand for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations increases, it is vital to understand its effects on air traffic controllers and the safety of the national airspace system. This study’s primary purpose is to determine how UAVs that operate in controlled airspace would influence air traffic controllers’ occupational stress and performance. In a within-subject experimental research design, 24 participants sampled from a university’s undergraduate Air Traffic Management (ATM) program completed three different air traffic control (ATC) scenarios on an en-route ATC simulation system. The degree of UAV automation and control were varied in each scenario. The participants’ stress levels, performance, and workload were measured with both objective and subjective measurements. Within-subjects ANOVA tests showed significant effects on the participants’ stress level, performance, and workload when automated UAVs were present in the scenario. Participants experienced increased workload, the highest level of stress, and carried out the worst performance when with controllable UAVs in the airspace. These findings can inform UAV integration into controlled airspace and future research into UAV automation and control and ATC management.
Categories: Graduate
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Safety Systems, Culture, and Passengers’ Willingness to Fly in Autonomous Air Taxis
PI Kenneth Ward
CO-I Scott Winter
As city populations grow, the transportation industry plans to alleviate traffic congestion by introducing the urban air mobility (UAM) concept, in which small passenger and cargo aircraft augment metropolitan transportation networks. A key component of UAM is that of air taxis, which are on-demand air services for individuals and small groups. In addition, UAM companies are designing the aircraft to operate fully autonomously: The intent is for the vehicles to arrive and transport people from point to point without input from human pilots.
In studies of passengers’ perceptions, researchers found that safety was among the top passenger concerns. The international market complicates the matter, as research indicates people from different nations differ in their willingness to fly in autonomous aircraft. Past research hypothesized that individuals’ cultural orientation, specifically their degree of individualism or communalism, was a factor of the differences in willingness to fly.
A quantitative survey experiment in two studies was conducted to investigate willingness to fly in autonomous air taxis among people from the United States and India. The first study used a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial analysis to test the effects of nationality, automatic airframe parachute availability, and remote pilot system availability on willingness to fly. People from India were more willing to fly than people from the United States, and people in general were more willing to fly in an aircraft equipped with an automatic airframe parachute. The second study replicated the effects of the first and tested whether two aspects of cultural orientation mediated the relationship between safety system availability and willingness to fly. Cultural orientation was not found to significantly mediate the relationship among people from the United States or India.
Categories: Graduate
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A Biologically Inspired Architecture Screening Tool to Improve Electric Grid Transient Response Design
PI Bryan Watson
The objective of this research is to develop and validate a new approach to design-for-transient resilience that provides additional insights, is less expensive, and can be used early in the design process.
Electrical distribution needs to protect society by providing reliable power, even under changing conditions. The current approach to design electrical distribution grids often focuses on steady state design requirements or response to a subset of potential faults. Even small and gradual changes in loading, however, can cause voltage transients and lead to major blackouts due to voltage collapse. As electric demand increases and infrastructure operates near its design limits, these events are likely to become more common. While designers can examine slowly changing load transients, this occurs after creating a model of the proposed grid, which can be costly. Thus, this research examines the following gap: A cost-effective approach is needed early in the electrical distribution design process to screen candidate architectures for their expected response to slowly changing operating conditions.
There is an opportunity to examine unexpected voltage collapse through the lens of ecosystem critical transitions. Critical transitions occur when an ecosystem shifts suddenly from one stable configuration (e.g. forest) to another (e.g. grassland) due to slowly changing environmental conditions (e.g. annual rainfall). The mathematical framework established to evaluate and classify critical transitions has been well studied but has not been used to design electrical distribution. The central hypothesis examined in this proposal is If we screen initial electrical distribution architectures with graph theory (Ecological Network Analysis), then the resulting designs will have improved critical transition performance over non-screened architectures. Critical transition performance has two aspects:
1.superior ability to absorb additional loading before voltage collapse (i.e. margin to critical transition), and
2. transition to desirable, stable secondary configurations following voltage collapse, rather than cascading throughout the system and causing a complete blackout (i.e. type of Bifurcation).
The objective of this research is to develop and validate a new approach to design-for-transient resilience that provides additional insights, is less expensive, and can be used early in the design process.
Categories: Faculty-Staff
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Creating Connections: Bed bugs to UAV Swarms
PI Bryan Watson
The overarching goal of our research is to advance our understanding of bed bug behavior and use this understanding to improve performance of aerospace swarms.
Modern aerospace systems need a new approach for swarm consensus that is distributed, operates with local knowledge, and uses simple agents. The overarching goal of our research is to advance our understanding of bed bug behavior and use this understanding to improve performance of aerospace swarms. The first step is to understand individual bed bug response to stimuli (CO2, heat, light) and individual neural characteristics, before considering group dynamics. The objective of this research was to establish a collaboration between biologists and engineers at ERAU to design and implement a test-platform to enable new data collection for bed bug movement. This collaboration begins by examining individual bed bug response to CO2 concentration. Our central hypothesis is that if we record bed bug response to CO2 exposure, then we will be able to improve our understanding of collective decision making because the bed bugs coordinate their response to environmental conditions. The research involved five undergraduate students from three campuses.
Categories: Faculty-Staff
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Learning from Zombie Ants to Increase UAV Swarm Resilience to Faulted Agents
PI Bryan Watson
This proposal examines the issue of faulted-agent mitigation through the lens of Biologically Inspired Design.
Modern aerospace systems often approach problems by connecting many smaller agents, rather than using a single, more expensive platform. For example, it is often advantageous to have a fleet of lower-cost UAVs searching an area than a single, highly capable platform (airship). These sophisticated networks, however, are vulnerable to cascading faults. For example, errors in data from a single UAV could lead the entire search party away from their intended target. Although recognized as a vulnerability for multi-agent systems, current fault-mitigation methods have significant limitations. Centralized monitoring methods are too computationally expensive and do not work well at large scale, while solutions that rely on agents reporting their own failures may not work in situations where the units are under attack or experiencing certain types of faults (e.g. communication failures). Additionally, current approaches often have strict assumptions that may not apply in real-world systems. As a result, large-scale aerospace systems are at risk of individual agent failures that can spread throughout the entire network, causing problems with system operation, and putting personnel in danger. This proposal examines the issue of faulted-agent mitigation through the lens of Biologically Inspired Design. The objective of this research is to investigate and evaluate a new biologically inspired approach to increase multi-agent system resilience. The Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis (OCR) or Zombie Ant Fungus provides an example of fault resilience in nature. The fungus infects the ant's nervous system and alters their behavior, ultimately leading to death. However, ant colonies have developed a unique foraging and organizational structure that contains the spread of the fungus. The central hypothesis is that an examination of colony response to OCR will allow derivation of information sharing protocols to increase multi-agent system resilience to fault propagation.
Categories: Faculty-Staff
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Navigation and Control for Autonomous Vessels
PI Darris White
PI Eric Coyle
PI Patrick Currier
Development of closed-form solution for control of over-actuated maritime systems.
A method for controlling the position, orientation and velocity of a marine vessel in a body of water with multiple, independently steered propulsion devices. The method involves receiving a command to move to a specific position and orientation. Utilizing position/heading feedback control, a control algorithm is used to calculate the required forces and moments to move the vehicle. Steering angles and thrust forces are determined for each of the vessel's propulsion devices. The thrust and angular displacement limits of each device are used to determine if the required forces and moments are achievable using one of three modes of operation: parallel steer, counter steer and combined parallel/counter steer. The approach fully utilizes the solution workspace for the over-actuated system without requiring the use of an optimization. The approach is used for smooth autonomous navigation in scenarios that include station keeping, path following, transitional states, disturbance rejection and object avoidance.Categories: Faculty-Staff
211-220 of 265 results