Research Projects

CubeSats Hosting Flexible Appendages for On-Orbit Testing of Advanced Control Algorithms

PI Riccardo Bevilacqua

The objective of this work is to start the assembly of a CubeSat hosting specialized flexible appendages, taking inspiration from a previously designed spacecraft developed by the Advanced Autonomous Multiple Spacecraft (ADAMUS).

The objective of this work is to start the assembly of a CubeSat hosting specialized flexible appendages, taking inspiration from a previously designed spacecraft developed by the Advanced Autonomous Multiple Spacecraft (ADAMUS). This CubeSat will eventually enable testing of ADAMUS’ developed spacecraft control algorithms on-orbit.

Relevance to NASA: The innovation proposed herein lies in the ability to autonomously characterize and control complex space structures. This project will directly support NASA’s TA 4: Robotics and Autonomous Systems

Categories: Faculty-Staff

A Machine Learning Based Transfer to Predict Warhead In-Flight Behavior from Static Arena Test Data

PI Riccardo Bevilacqua

The objective of this work is to combine high-fidelity numerical models with unique/ad-hoc experimental activities to strengthen basic science underpinning the test and evaluation framework for warhead fragmentation and fragments fly-out.

Warhead fragmentation predictions are based on either numerical simulations or static arena tests where detonations occur in unrealistic conditions (not flying). The first methodology presents many shortcomings: there is no agreement on the state of the art for simulations, and many tools ignore important aspects such as gravity, aerodynamic forces and moments, and rigid body motion of different shape fragments. Numerical simulations are also lengthy and cannot be used as online/on-the-battlefield tools. The experimental approach is also extremely limited, as it does not reproduce the real-world conditions of a moving warhead.

The objective of this work is to combine high-fidelity numerical models with unique/ad-hoc experimental activities to strengthen basic science underpinning the test and evaluation framework for warhead fragmentation and fragments fly-out. In particular, we will aim at combining the most advanced simulation capabilities with static experimental data, to obtain a transfer function predicting lethality and collateral damage of a given warhead in real-life conditions. Artificial neural networks and/or other machine learning tools (e.g., Random Forests) will be used to capture the underlying physics governing fragments dispersion under dynamic conditions, coming from NAVAIR’s Spidy software, and eventually combine this knowledge with real warhead characteristics, coming from the static test. This proposal is of high impact because of the existing gap in analytical tools to define and validate warhead fragmentation testing.

The broader impact (long term) of this work may be a software tool that the warfighter can use on the field to rapidly assess the effects of the arsenal at his disposal. This tool will be equally beneficial to designers and testers within the Air Force and the DoD in general.

Categories: Faculty-Staff

Evaluating Preflight Weather Briefing Strategies

PI Elizabeth Blickensderfer

CO-I Thomas Guinn

CO-I Robert Thomas

The objective of this grant is to examine General Aviation (GA) pilots’ capability to conduct Preflight Weather self-briefings as compared to using Flight Services to obtain weather briefings. Previous research indicates that GA pilots are increasingly conducting weather self-briefings during preflight (Duke et al., 2019). Additional research indicates that GA pilots have moderately low performance when interpreting aviation weather observation and forecast products (Blickensderfer et al., 2019). Research is needed to assess and understand the attitudes, knowledge, and performance of GA pilots conducting self-briefings to identify possible gaps and, in turn, provide recommendations for future system design and pilot training.

Categories: Faculty-Staff

STEM Literacy and Service-Learning

PI Sally Blomstrom

This service-learning project investigates STEM literacy and involves students in sections of Speech (COM 219). Students create an audio tour about a specimen from the A. Jewell Schock Natural History Museum. The audio tour includes the specimen’s scientific name, a description of its biology, its habitat, its diet, and the forces of flight related to the specimen as well as its biomechanics.

They will be instructed to develop content which includes descriptive information about the biology of the specimen (science), the biomechanics used (engineering), dimensions of the specimen and its rate of speed (math). They will use technology in the process of creating and sending the audio files, and the museum will use technology to make the files available to visitors of the museum, both online and in person (technology). The goal is to have students engage in research on a STEM topic and then communicate their knowledge to a general audience using technology. We are investigating if, and to what extent, the project increases STEM literacy which is defined as a demonstrated ability to read STEM text, tables, and graphics with understanding, to evaluate the quality of the read information, to identify relevant information and incorporate that information in written or oral communication.

Categories: Faculty-Staff

Humanistic STEM: Blending Humanities and STEM to Increase Undergraduate Student Engagement, Knowledge, and Skills

PI Debra Bourdeau

NSF IUSE #2120807

Categories: Faculty-Staff

Developing Autonomous, Targeted Feedback in Precalculus

PI Darryl Chamberlain

The overriding goal of this project is to investigate student knowledge in a Precalculus course at ERAU-W in order to construct autonomous, targeted feedback for free-responses questions to enhance students' online learning. This will be accomplished by analyzing student responses to exam questions and interviewing students to probe how their mathematical conceptions correspond to their exam responses.

Categories: Faculty-Staff

Project Global Officer

PI Aaron Clevenger

Project GO provide's overseas language instruction consisting of a minimum of 8 weeks and/or 150 contact hours (per grant program) to ROTC students nationwide with the goal of helping student to reach an ILR 1 proficiency level in a critical language: Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan, and Arabic in Jordan. All students should reach the objective of successfully applying the target language and cultural knowledge in actual communication with native speakers.

Categories: Faculty-Staff

Virtual Communities of Practice: Scaling, Belonging, and Effective Feedback

PI Cristina Cottom

CO-I Angela Atwell

CO-I Lisa Martino

CO-I Sara Ombres

The purpose of this research study is to extend CTLE-W's previous research on virtual faculty learning communities (VCoP) by testing a new VCoP for scalability with an expanded participation pool. This study also seeks to increase the sense of belonging among non-collocated faculty participants and to use the VCoP to provide continuing education on effective feedback practices.This VCoP and the research study will last for 8 weeks during the fall and spring. As part of the participation in the VCoP faculty will complete several online asynchronous activities using VoiceThread to discuss effective feedback practices, as well as a survey at the beginning and end of their VCoP experience.

This research study is an extension and expansion of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence’s existing VCoP. In 2016, our research team was awarded a grant from the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network to create a VCoP tailored specifically to online adjunct faculty, which yielded positive findings. In this current study, we were awarded additional grant funds from POD to build upon this success by designing a VCoP that recruits from our entire faculty pool in order to measure how it affects their sense of belonging and to test the framework we created for scalability. In addition, this collaborative experience will not focus on teaching in a single modality, but will instead address a shared practice that is relevant to all instructors. Regardless of modality, all instructors can improve effective feedback practices. Therefore, in this extended and expanded VCoP all faculty will have an opportunity to explore practices around effective feedback. This research will contribute to the existing literature by studying the scalability of VCoPs in faculty development settings and test how participation in VCoPs promotes belonging among dispersed faculty members teaching in multiple modalities. In addition, this study will also result in the production of documents that will facilitate future VCoP development and will generate valuable co-created knowledge on effective feedback. This study will employ a mixed-methods design that will use both quantitative and qualitative data to analyze the results of the survey. In addition, data will be collected from VoiceThread, facilitator reflections, observation notes, and artifact analysis.

Categories: Faculty-Staff

Maritime RobotX Challenge

PI Eric Coyle

CO-I Patrick Currier

CO-I Charles Reinholtz

CO-I Brian Butka

The Maritime RobotX Challenge entails the development and demonstration of an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV). Embry‑Riddle is one of three U.S. schools selected to compete in the challenge, which is co-sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Foundation.

The 2014 ERAU platform, named Minion, is a 16-foot fully-autonomous Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel (WAM-V) platform and is registered as an autonomous boat in the state of Florida. Minion's development currently focuses on autonomous tasks of buoy channel navigation, debris avoidance, docking, target identification and sonar localization. To accomplishing these tasks, the team has developed as set of system software nodes including state estimation, object classification, mapping and trajectory planning. These nodes run in parallel across a set of networked computers for distributed processing. Minion's propulsion system is centered around a set rim-driven hubless motors attached to articulated motor pods. This design reduces the risk of entanglement, and provides consistent thrust by maintaining motor depth in rough seas.

The group is currently developing the 2016 platform for the competition

Categories: Faculty-Staff

Exploring vulnerabilities, threats, and exploits in small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS)

PI John Craiger

Small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS), also known as drones, have been called flying computers given the overlap in their technologies. The purpose of this research is to conduct cybersecurity vulnerability assessments of several sUAS to identify vulnerabilities, threats, and associated exploits to the sUAS. Cyber vulnerabilities could theoretically allow a bad actor to take control of the sUAS, cause it to malfunction while in flight, and more.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicts that purchases of hobbyist small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) will grow from 1.9 million in 2016 to 4.3 million by 2020, and commercial sUAS to increase from 600,000 in 2016 to 2.7 million by 2020. sUAS, often referred to as ‘drones,’ are comprised of aeronautical hardware, a CPU, RAM, onboard storage, radio frequency communications, sensors, a camera, and a controller used by the pilot-in-command. Some have argued that a sUAS is essentially a flying computer. As such, sUAS may be susceptible to many of the types of attacks that are often used on personal computers attached to a computer network. Potential attacks on sUAS include de-authentication (i.e., ‘terminating’ the sUAS from the network); GPS spoofing (e.g., modifying or faking GPS coordinates); unauthorized access to the computer flight systems and onboard storage; jamming the communications channel (resulting in the possible loss of the sUAS); and contaminating the sUAS geofencing mechanism (allowing the sUAS to fly in a ‘no-fly-zone’). The result of these types of attacks include theft of the sUAS; flying the sUAS into sensitive/off- limits areas; purposefully crashing the sUAS to cause damage to persons or equipment (including airplanes, crowds, etc.); and theft or adulteration of sensitive data (e.g., law enforcement surveillance data).

The purpose of this research is to identify potential threats, vulnerabilities, and exploits for a subset of consumer/hobby sUAS that were included in the 2016 ERAU sUAS Consumer Guide. The research will apply a threat modeling approach to identify cyber-based vulnerabilities; potential attack vectors; commercial-off-the-shelf and “home-built” equipment required to effectuate attacks; cyber and kinetic ramifications of attacks; and mitigating strategies for protecting sUAS from cyber-attacks. Vulnerability assessments are to be conducted via network scanning tools to identify open network ports, vulnerability scanners that identify system vulnerabilities, and tools used for the associated exploitation of these vulnerabilities. The exploitation (i.e., attack) architecture will use an attack proxy consisting of a Raspberry PI running Kali Linux OS, and specifically outfitted with multiple network interface cards, allowing the proxy to capture and manipulate network traffic in either managed or monitor (i.e., active vs. passive) mode. Given that most personal computers are known to suffer from various cyber vulnerabilities, and many of the components and software are the same as used in personal computers, we expect to observe the same for the sUAS.

Identifying threats and vulnerabilities has two purposes, one defensive, and one offensive. From the defensive side, manufacturers, and even users, should be aware of potential threats. Manufacturers should be aware that the design and component decisions can effect the cybersecurity of the sUAS. From the offensive side, sUAS pilots are known to fly them for nefarious purposes, including flying into no-fly zones, violating the privacy of individuals using attached high-definition cameras, etc. Indeed, a new and growing industry involves developing anti-drone techniques to protect against rogue sUAS and their pilots.

Categories: Faculty-Staff