51-60 of 61 results

  • From Middle School to Industry Vertical Integration to Inspire Interest in Computational Thinking

    PI Massood Towhidnejad

    CO-I Thomas Hilburn

    While students typically do not see immediate advantages of the topics being studies, top down integration exposes students to larger, more complex projects, giving them better appreciation for topics as they realize the “big picture.”

    Funded by the National Science Foundation, this research seeks to vertically integrate software development best practices from industry to graduate, undergraduate, high school, and middle school academic programs, with the intention of increasing student interest in computing and computational thinking.

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Developing Artifact Peer Review Assignment Methodologies to Maximize the Value of Peer Review for Students

    PI Matthew Verleger

    This engineering education research project seeks to develop a proof-of-concept peer review matching algorithm and demonstrate if it is a valuable and viable methodology for conducting peer review. Peer review is a proven method that has positive impact on student learning. The project will test the algorithm on Model Eliciting Activities in the engineering classroom, and investigate how changing peer review can affect student learning.



    ​The broader significance and importance of this project is the transformative potential of improving peer review processes, since peer review is used throughout STEM and medical fields. Thus this preliminary investigation can extend outside the realm of improving student learning. This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goals of transforming the frontiers through preparation of an engineering workforce with new capabilities and expertise. Additionally NSF's goal of innovating for society is enabled by supporting the development of innovative learning systems.

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    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Platform for Investigating Concept Networks on the Instrumentality of Knowledge (PICNIK)

    PI Matthew Verleger

    This engineering education research project seeks to develop a concept network for engineering and a platform for helping students identify how concepts are connected across a curriculum.  The goal is to better understand and improve how students value the concepts being taught throughout their education.



    By data mining course materials (i.e., textbooks, course notes, syllabi, video transcripts, websites, etc.), a concept network can be developed for that course. With each additional resource, the network connectedness become more fully representative.  By mapping materials from courses throughout a curriculum, and then overlaying the resulting map on a degree plan of study, students will be able to better identify and value how concepts being taught today are connected and used throughout the rest of their education. For instructors, curricular redesign becomes significantly easier, as they will be able to more fully contextualize how other courses depend on their material.

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • 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

  • 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

  • Distributed Detection and Control of Collective Behaviors in Multi-agent Systems

    PI Tianyu Yang

    Multi-agent systems can be defined as a group of dynamical systems, in which certain emergent behaviors are exhibited through the local interaction among group members that individually have the capability of self-operating. The key issues we study include the analysis of network controllability and the design of coordination control protocol in order to achieve autonomous and optimal tasking allocation. Also, the detection and resilient control of emergent behaviors in large scale multi-agent systems are of keen interest. 

    Our analysis is conducted through modeling, detection, learning, and estimation of agent interaction dynamics and interaction topologies, and the design of resilient cooperative control protocols. The projects have been funded by Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate (AFRL/RI) Machine Intelligence for Mission Focused Autonomy (MIMFA) program. The projects are in collaboration with researchers from Bradley University

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • UAS Ground Collision Severity Evaluation

    PI Feng Zhu

    CO-I Eduardo Divo

    CO-I Victor Huayamave

    Increased use of UAS requires an in-depth understanding of the hazard severity and likelihood of UAS operations in the NAS. Due to their distinct characteristics (e.g. size, weight and shape) with manned aircraft systems, UAS operations may pose unique hazards to other aircraft and people on the ground. 

    Up to date, the studies on the UAS ground collision are still very much limited, particularly the scenario of impact between UAS and human body on the ground. Therefore, it is necessary to determine lethality thresholds for UAS using characteristic factors that affect the potential lethality of UAS in collisions with other objects, particularly human body on the ground. The objectives of this study are (1) to analyze the response and failure behavior of several typical UASs impact with human body on the ground; and (2) establish the damage threshold of UAS and its correlation with the key parameters in the crash accidents (e.g. shape, size and materials of UAS; impact energy and impulse etc.). To achieve this goal, advanced computational modeling techniques (e.g. finite element method/FEM) will be used to simulate the typical UAS/people impact scenarios.Based on the results, a design guidance can be further suggested to improve the crashworthiness of UAS and safety of personnel on the ground.

    Conventional 14 CFR system safety analyses include hazards to flight crew and occupants may not be applicable to unmanned aircraft.  It is necessary to determine the dedicated hazard severity thresholds for UAS and identify the key factors that affect the potential severity of UAS in collisions with other aircraft on the ground or in airborne encounters as well as collisions with people on the ground.  These severity thresholds will help determine acceptable corresponding system failure levels in accordance with the applicable 14 CFR requirements (for example 14 CFR 23.1309 and 14 CFR 25.1309).

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Langrangian Wind Tunnel

    ERAU is supporting industry (i.e. Global Aerospace Corp.) in the development of a novel hypersonic wind tunnel by using high-fidelity computational fluid dynamcs.

    GAC is leading development of a wind tunnel in which the test article is propelled thru the test section at hypersonic speeds using a novel, proprietary approach.  Due to proprietary restrictions a simplistic version of the test article is illustrated below as it moves Mach 10 from right to left.  Shock waves may be observed reflecting off tunnel walls.  A Phase I Air Force STTR effort has been completed and Phase II is expected to begin in the near future.

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • ACTIVE CONTROL OF SUPERSONIC JET NOISE VIA BI-MODAL EXCITATION



    Jet noise is a major problem for both military and commercial aircraft, and there is a lot of interest in ways to reduce it.  In this research project sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, the objective is to implement active control in rectangular jets to reduce the noise.  This is to be done by exciting the jet at a fundamental frequency as well as either a harmonic or subharmonic frequency.  The amplitudes of the excitation are small, thus there should be minimal impact of excitation on aircraft performance.  In doing this, we can manipulate the large-scale structures in the jet, which is the dominant noise source.  The working principle here is that energy from the fundamental mode is transferred to the subharmonic or harmonic, which results in a reduction of the peak noise. 

    In order to compute the noise sources, High-Fidelity Large Eddy Simulations (LES) is done by modifying a code originally developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory, which uses high-order numerical schemes.  However, LES is very computationally expensive and can take weeks to obtain results when running on a supercomputer.  Choosing the wrong excitation parameters can result in zero noise reduction or even enhancement of the noise.  To predict optimal excitation parameters, a Reduced-Order Model (ROM) has been derived to predict the propagation of noise sources in a jet.  Inputs to the ROM can come from linear methods such as Linear Stability Analysis or the Linearized Euler Equations.  Once the ROM is set up, a set of nonlinear differential equations can be solved numerically.  By comparison, this takes only a matter of seconds and does not require the use of a supercomputing cluster.  Using these results, we can observe the damping effect on the dominant noise source, and optimal excitation parameters can be chosen as inputs into LES.

    Current work is focused on performing LES on a Mach 1.5 planar jet, which approximates the flow in the minor plane of a rectangular jet.  This is being done to validate open-loop control using results from the ROM.  Both the symmetric and asymmetric modes will be studied.  Future work will involve performing LES on a Three-dimensional rectangular jet, which will be more representative of a real jet.  Here, closed-loop control can also be implemented.  By measuring the noise signal near the exit of the jet, parameters can be inputted to the ROM to give optimal excitation parameters thereby maximizing the noise reduction.


    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • The S-Band Array for Bistatic Electromagnetic Ranging (SABER)

    CO-I Brian Butka

    Faculty in the Electrical, Computer, Software, and Systems Engineering Department at Embry-Riddle are developing new radar that may alter the paradigm of locating aircraft.



    Unlike standard radars that generate high-power radio pulses and listen for the return echoes indicating aircraft, the SABER system has no transmitter of its own. Instead, the researchers use weak echoes of signals from existing satellites high above the Earth to locate their quarry.Passive radars exploiting environmental signals are not uncommon and systems using television and radio stations have been known for more than a decade; however, systems using satellites are unique. Satellite signals are much weaker than ground-based signals, and are often considered too weak to be useful. The key, says Barott, is in the signal processing, which is able to identify the very weak echoes - and thus the aircraft - among the sea of radio noise and interfering signals.

    Passive radars exploiting environmental signals are not uncommon and systems using television and radio stations have been known for more than a decade; however, systems using satellites are unique. Satellite signals are much weaker than ground-based signals, and are often considered too weak to be useful. The key, says Barott, is in the signal processing, which is able to identify the very weak echoes - and thus the aircraft - among the sea of radio noise and interfering signals.The researchers envision many applications for passive radars using satellite-based signals. To start with, a network of inexpensive stations could supplement existing systems for tracking low-altitude aircraft, and provide coverage in mountainous regions where little radar coverage currently exists. “It's a similar idea to why you might get satellite television,” says Barott. “Remote locations and rough terrain might block ground-based signals, but are no problem for satellites sending their signals down from orbit.” Other applications include rapid deployment radars and approach radars for remote airfields. The researchers also note potential applications utilizing the covert and stealth-detecting aspects of this type of radar

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

51-60 of 61 results