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Aerospace
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Driving Forward Aerospace Innovation
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Driving Forward Aerospace Innovation

A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2015) | Viewed by 71156

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Konstantinos Kontis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, James Watt Building South, University Avenue, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland, UK
Interests: aerodynamic technologies; flow and flight control systems; shock physics; aerospace design and optimization; flow diagnostics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Aerospace tackles the multidisciplinary challenges faced by the aerospace industry in the 21st century. Extensive research and technology programmes, aligning directly with international and national industrial priorities and 2020-2050 Vision, are being delivered for greener, faster, safer and more extensive travel. Aerospace brings together the industry and academic communities in line with the strategy of focusing on the high value, technologically sophisticated parts of aircrafts, rotorcrafts, missiles, rockets and space vehicles.
For example, improvements enabled by Aerospace research are expected to lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions of more than 100 million tonnes each year from next generation aircraft - equivalent to taking 20 million cars off the road around the world. Although new materials such as composites are being increasingly used in aerospace, the initial approach has been to incorporate them within traditional aircraft designs. The industry has yet to take full advantage of the properties that these materials offer to open up radical new design options. It also needs to optimise manufacturing processes to allow structures using these materials to be made cheaply at high production rates. Aircraft manufacturers want better environmental performance to satisfy legislative and public demand.
To be leaner and greener new generations of aerospace vehicles will need to incorporate radically different technologies. This can be achieved by changing the way we design and manufacture wings, engines, structures and advanced systems and equipment, including key helicopter, missile and space technologies. The ideal plan would have a combination of both fundamental and applied research. We invite papers addressing these problems as an actual and important contribution to the state of the art.

Prof. Dr. Konstantinos Kontis
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Aerospace is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.


Keywords

  • aerodynamic technologies
  • flow and flight control systems
  • shock physics
  • aerospace design and optimization
  • aero-elasticity
  • combustion
  • fuels
  • aerospace propulsion
  • smart materials and structures
  • composite structures and health monitoring
  • aircraft structural integrity
  • energy harvesting
  • advanced space propulsion
  • energy systems for space
  • rotorcraft
  • systems engineering
  • guidance navigation and control
  • air traffic management
  • actuators
  • damping and energy absorption systems
  • crashworthiness

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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1713 KiB  
Article
Position Estimation Using the Image Derivative
by Daniele Mortari, Francesco De Dilectis and Renato Zanetti
Aerospace 2015, 2(3), 435-460; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace2030435 - 3 Jul 2015
Cited by 37 | Viewed by 8452
Abstract
This article describes an image processing algorithm to identify the size and shape of a spherical reflecting celestial body prominently depicted in images taken from a spacecraft with an optical camera, with the purpose of estimating the relative distance between target and observer [...] Read more.
This article describes an image processing algorithm to identify the size and shape of a spherical reflecting celestial body prominently depicted in images taken from a spacecraft with an optical camera, with the purpose of estimating the relative distance between target and observer in magnitude and direction. The approach is based on the fact that in such images, the pixels belonging to the target’s hard edge have the highest values of the image derivative; therefore, they are easily recognizable when the image is processed with a gradient filter. Eventual extraneous points polluting the dataset (outliers) are eliminated by two methods applied in sequence. The target center and radius are estimated by non-linear least squares using circular sigmoid functions. The proposed image processing has been applied to real and synthetic Moon images. An error analysis is also performed to determine the performance of the proposed method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Driving Forward Aerospace Innovation)
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347 KiB  
Article
Transmit Energy Efficiency of Two Cognitive Radar Platforms for Target Identification
by Ric Romero and Emmanouil Mourtzakis
Aerospace 2015, 2(3), 376-391; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace2030376 - 26 Jun 2015
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 6202
Abstract
Cognitive radar (CRr) is a recent radar paradigm that can potentially help drive aerospace innovation forward. Two specific platforms of cognitive radar used for target identification are discussed. One uses sequential hypothesis testing (SHT) in the receiver processing and is referred to as [...] Read more.
Cognitive radar (CRr) is a recent radar paradigm that can potentially help drive aerospace innovation forward. Two specific platforms of cognitive radar used for target identification are discussed. One uses sequential hypothesis testing (SHT) in the receiver processing and is referred to as SHT-CRr and the other one uses maximum a posteriori (MAP) and is referred to as MAP-CRr. Our main goal in this article is to make a practical comparison between SHT-CRr and MAP-CRr platforms in terms of transmission energy efficiency. Since the performance metric for the SHT-CRr is the average number of illuminations (ANI) and the performance metric for MAP-CRr is the percentage of correct decisions (\(P_{cd}\)), a direct comparison between the platforms is difficult to perform. In this work, we introduce a useful procedure that involves a metric called total transmit energy (TTE) given a fixed \(P_{cd}\) as a metric to measure the transmit energy efficiency of both platforms. Lower TTE means that the platform is more efficient in achieving a desired \(P_{cd}\). To facilitate a robust comparison, a transmit-adaptive waveform that consistently outperforms the pulsed waveform in terms of both \(P_{cd}\) and ANI is needed. We show that a certain adaptive waveform called the probability weighted energy signal-to-noise ratio-based (PWE-SNR) waveform outperforms the pulsed wideband waveform (i.e., flat frequency response) in terms of ANI and \(P_{cd}\) for all ranges of transmit waveform energy. We also note that the \(P_{cd}\) performance of SHT-CRr can be drastically different from the probability threshold (i.e., the probability value that is used to stop radar illumination for the purposes of classification), which is critically important for CRr system designers to realize. Indeed, this fact turns out to be key in accomplishing our goal to compare SHT-CRr and MAP-CRr in terms of transmit energy efficiency. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Driving Forward Aerospace Innovation)
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2785 KiB  
Article
Gust Alleviation of a Large Aircraft with a Passive Twist Wingtip
by Shijun Guo, Jaime Espinosa De Los Monteros and Ying Liu
Aerospace 2015, 2(2), 135-154; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace2020135 - 3 Apr 2015
Cited by 37 | Viewed by 11863
Abstract
This paper presents an investigation into the gust response and wing structure load alleviation of a 200-seater aircraft by employing a passive twist wingtip (PTWT). The research was divided into three stages. The first stage was the design and analysis of the baseline [...] Read more.
This paper presents an investigation into the gust response and wing structure load alleviation of a 200-seater aircraft by employing a passive twist wingtip (PTWT). The research was divided into three stages. The first stage was the design and analysis of the baseline aircraft, including aerodynamic analysis, structural design using the finite element (FE) method and flutter analysis to meet the design requirements. Dynamic response analysis of the aircraft to discrete (one-cosin) gust was also performed in a range of gust radiances specified in the airworthiness standards. In the second stage, a PTWT of a length of 1.13 m was designed with the key parameters determined based on design constraints and, in particular, the aeroelastic stability and gust response. Subsequent gust response analysis was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the PTWT for gust alleviation. The results show that the PTWT produced a significant reduction of gust-induced wingtip deflection by 21% and the bending moment at the wing root by 14% in the most critical flight case. In the third stage, effort was made to study the interaction and influence of the PTWT on the symmetric and unsymmetrical manoeuvring of the aircraft when ailerons were in operation. The results show the that PTWT influence with a reduction of the aircraft normal velocity and heave motion by 1.7% and 3%, respectively, is negligible. However, the PTWT influence on the aircraft roll moment with a 20.5% reduction is significant. A locking system is therefore required in such a manoeuvring condition. The investigation has shown that the PTWT is an effective means for gust alleviation and, therefore, has potential for large aircraft application. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Driving Forward Aerospace Innovation)
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12852 KiB  
Article
The Development of Rocketry Capability in New Zealand—World Record Rocket and First of Its Kind Rocketry Course
by George Buchanan, David Wright, Christopher Hann, Hoani Bryson, Malcolm Snowdon, Avinash Rao, Adam Slee, Hans Philipp Sültrop, Bastian Jochle-Rings, Zane Barker, Abigail McKinstry, Claude Meffan, George Xian, Ryan Mitchell and XiaoQi Chen
Aerospace 2015, 2(1), 91-117; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace2010091 - 25 Feb 2015
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 15253
Abstract
The University of Canterbury has developed a rocket research group, UC Rocketry, which recently broke the world altitude record for an I-class motor (impulse of 320–640 Ns) and has run a rocketry course for the first time in New Zealand. This paper discusses [...] Read more.
The University of Canterbury has developed a rocket research group, UC Rocketry, which recently broke the world altitude record for an I-class motor (impulse of 320–640 Ns) and has run a rocketry course for the first time in New Zealand. This paper discusses the development and results of the world record rocket “Milly” and details all the fundamental elements of the rocketry final year engineering course, including the manufacturing processes, wind tunnel testing, avionics, control and the final rocket launch of “Smokey”. The rockets Milly and Smokey are an example of the design, implementation and testing methodologies that have significantly contributed to research and graduates for New Zealand’s space program. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Driving Forward Aerospace Innovation)
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460 KiB  
Article
Robust Flight Control Design to Minimize Aircraft Loss-of-Control Incidents
by Ronald A. Hess
Aerospace 2014, 1(1), 1-17; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace1010001 - 7 Nov 2013
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 7819
Abstract
A pseudo-sliding mode control synthesis procedure discussed previously in the literature is applied to the design of a control system for a nonlinear model of the NASA Langley Generic Transport Model. The complete vehicle model is included as an appendix. The goal of [...] Read more.
A pseudo-sliding mode control synthesis procedure discussed previously in the literature is applied to the design of a control system for a nonlinear model of the NASA Langley Generic Transport Model. The complete vehicle model is included as an appendix. The goal of the design effort is the synthesis of a robust control system to minimize aircraft loss-of-control by preserving fundamental pilot input—system response characteristics across the flight envelope, here including the possibility of actuator damage. The design is carried out completely in the frequency domain and is described by a ten-step synthesis procedure, also previously introduced it the literature. Five different flight tasks are considered in computer simulations of the completed design demonstrating the stability and performance robustness of the control system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Driving Forward Aerospace Innovation)
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Review

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2824 KiB  
Review
On Physical Aeroacoustics with Some Implications for Low-Noise Aircraft Design and Airport Operations
by Luís M. B. C. Campos
Aerospace 2015, 2(1), 17-90; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace2010017 - 4 Feb 2015
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 12041
Abstract
Air traffic is growing at a steady rate of 3% to 5% per year in most regions of the world, implying a doubling every 15–25 years. This requires major advances in aircraft noise reduction at airports, just not to increase the noise exposure [...] Read more.
Air traffic is growing at a steady rate of 3% to 5% per year in most regions of the world, implying a doubling every 15–25 years. This requires major advances in aircraft noise reduction at airports, just not to increase the noise exposure due to the larger number of aircraft movements. In fact it can be expected, as a consequence of increased opposition to noise by near airport residents, that the overall noise exposure will have to be reduced, by bans, curfews, fines, and other means and limitations, unless significantly quieter aircraft operations are achieved. The ultimate solution is aircraft operations inaudible outside the airport perimeter, or noise levels below road traffic and other existing local noise sources. These substantial noise reductions cannot come at the expense of a degradation of cruise efficiency, that would affect not just economics and travel time, but would increase fuel consumption and emission of pollutants on a global scale. The paper reviews the: (i) current knowledge of the aircraft noise sources; (ii) the sound propagation in the atmosphere and ground effects that determine the noise annoyance of near-airport residents; (iii) the noise mitigation measures that can be applied to current and future aircraft; (iv) the prospects of evolutionary and novel aircraft designs towards quieter aircraft in the near term and eventually to operations inaudible outside the airport perimeter. The 20 figures and 1 diagram with their legends provide a visual summary of the review. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Driving Forward Aerospace Innovation)
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1217 KiB  
Review
Human-in-the-Loop (HITL): Probabilistic Predictive Modeling (PPM) of an Aerospace Mission/Situation Outcome
by Ephraim Suhir
Aerospace 2014, 1(3), 101-136; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace1030101 - 19 Dec 2014
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 8298
Abstract
Improvements in safety in the air and in space can be achieved through better ergonomics, better work environment, and other efforts of the traditional avionic psychology that directly affect human behaviors and performance. There is also a significant potential, however, for further reduction [...] Read more.
Improvements in safety in the air and in space can be achieved through better ergonomics, better work environment, and other efforts of the traditional avionic psychology that directly affect human behaviors and performance. There is also a significant potential, however, for further reduction in aerospace accidents and casualties through better understanding the role that various uncertainties play in the planner’s and operator’s worlds of work, when never-perfect human, never failure-free navigation equipment and instrumentation, never hundred-percent-predictable response of the object of control (air- or space-craft), and uncertain-and-often-harsh environments contribute jointly to the likelihood of a mishap. By employing quantifiable and measurable ways of assessing the role and significance of such uncertainties and treating a human-in-the-loop (HITL) as a part, often the most crucial part, of a complex man–instrumentation–equipment–vehicle–environment system, one could improve dramatically the state-of-the-art in assuring aerospace operational safety. This can be done by predicting, quantifying and, if necessary, even specifying an adequate (low enough) probability of a possible accident. Nothing and nobody is perfect, of course, and the difference between a highly reliable object, product, performance or a mission and an insufficiently reliable one is “merely” in the level of the never-zero probability of failure. Application of the probabilistic predictive modeling (PPM) concept provides a natural and an effective means for reduction of vehicular casualties. When success and safety are imperative, ability to predict and quantify the outcome of an HITL related mission or a situation is a must. This is not the current practice though. The application of the PPM concept can improve therefore the state-of-the-art in understanding and accounting for the human performance in a vehicular mission or a situation. While the traditional statistical human-factor-oriented approaches are based on experimentations followed by statistical analyses, the PPM concept is based on, and starts with, physically meaningful and flexible predictive modeling followed by highly focused and highly cost effective experimentations geared to the chosen governing model(s). The PPT concept enables one to quantify, on the probabilistic basis, the outcome of a particular HITL related effort, situation or a mission. If the predicted outcome, in terms of the most likely probability of the operational failure, is not favorable, then an appropriate sensitivity analysis (SA) based on the developed and available algorithms can be effectively conducted to improve the situation. With the appropriate modifications and generalizations, such a cost-effective and insightful approach is applicable to numerous, not even necessarily in the aerospace and vehicular domain, HITL related missions and situations, when a human encounters an uncertain environment or a hazardous off-normal situation. The suggested approach is applicable also when there is an incentive to quantify human’s qualifications and performance, and/or when there is a need to assess and possibly improve his/her role in a particular mission or a situation. The general PPM concepts are illustrated in this analysis by addressing several more or less typical aerospace HITL related problems and by providing meaningful numerical examples. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Driving Forward Aerospace Innovation)
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