1 Preface Outer billiards is a basic dynamical system defined relative to a convex shape in the plane. B.H. Neumann introduced outer billiards in the 1950s, and J. Moser popularized outer billiards in the 1970s as a toy model for celestial mechanics. Outer billiards is an appealing dynamical system because of its simplicity and also because of its connection to topics such as interval exchange ...

This study examined the ability of pole-bound hawk-kites to protect maturing fields of corn from blackbird damage. Hawk-kites were placed over half of each experimental field. Damage on the hawk-kite side was slightly, but not significantly, less than on the unprotected side as measured by the percent of ears damaged by birds, total amount of grain lost to birds, or percent of crop damaged by b...

The traction force of a kite can be used to drive a cyclic motion for extracting wind energy from the atmosphere. This paper presents a novel quasi-steady modelling framework for predicting the power generated over a full pumping cycle. The cycle is divided into traction, retraction and transition phases, each described by an individual set of analytic equations. The effect of gravity on the ai...

1York Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Dynamics (KITE) and Centre for the Integration of Research, Conservation and Learning (CIRCLE), Environment Department, University of York, YO10 5DD, UK 2Flamingo Land Ltd., Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire YO17 6UX, UK 3Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK 4Missouri Botanical Ga...

This paper presents the design and testing of a control system for the robotic flight of tethered kites. The use of tethered kites as a prime mover in airborne wind energy is undergoing active research in several quarters. There also exist several additional applications for the remote or autonomous control of tethered kites, such as aerial sensor and communications platforms. The system presen...