Acceleration is of great importance in motion control for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), especially during the takeoff and landing stages. However, the measured acceleration is inevitably polluted by severe noise. Therefore, a proper noise suppression procedure is required. This paper presents a novel method to reduce the noise in the measured vertical acceleration for a thrust-vectored tail-...

Compared to other species of tamarins and marmosets, callimicos (Callimico goeldii) are characterized by hindlimb and hindfoot elongation, and a pattern of locomotion dominated by leaping to and from vertical supports in the forest understory. We present field data on trunk-to-trunk leaping in a habituated group of callimicos in northern Bolivia. We measured the DBH of the takeoff and landing p...

Sales in a new market generally follow a hockey-stick pattern: after commercialization, sales are very low for some time before there is a dramatic “takeoff” in growth. Reported sales takeoffs across products vary widely from a few years to several decades. Prior research identifies new firm entry or price declines as key factors that relate to the timing of a sales takeoff in new markets. Howe...

A critical role of functional morphology is to demonstrate form-function relationships that can then be used by evolutionary biologists to infer the evolutionary history of the structure in question. Tests of theoretical expectations about the effects of many aspects of morphology/physiology on locomotor performance have had very mixed results. If systems such as jumping can be shown to reliabl...

The goal of a safety management system is to monitor sensors, identify hazards and mitigate risk to the extent possible. In this paper, we present a novel approach called Flight Safety Assessment and Management (FSAM) to assess key quantitative and qualitative feedback parameters for loss of control (LOC) risk. Decision making logic is specified as a set of hierarchical timed automata models. L...

The Wave Dragon is a wave energy converter of the overtopping type which has been developed by a European consortium during the last five years. It uses a set of low head water turbines as power takeoff system. In the course of a two year research programme the basic conception of the turbines has been established, the turbine geometry has been designed and a model turbine has been built and te...

The adaptive value of size changes in different organ and muscle groups was studied in red knots (Calidris canutus islandica) in relation to their migration. Birds were sampled on five occasions: at arrival in Iceland in May 1994, two times during subsequent refueling, at departure toward, and on return from, the high arctic breeding grounds. During their 24-d stopover in May, body mass increas...

Flightless animals have evolved diverse mechanisms to control their movements in air, whether falling with gravity or propelling against it. Many insects jump as a primary mode of locomotion and must therefore precisely control the large torques generated during takeoff. For example, to minimize spin (angular momentum of the body) at takeoff, plant-sucking bugs apply large equal and opposite to...

This study used a subject-specific model with eight segments driven by joint torques for forward dynamics simulation to investigate the effects of initial conditions and takeoff technique on the performance of running jumps for height and distance. The torque activation profiles were varied in order to obtain matching simulations for two jumping performances (one for height and one for distance...

Epidemiological studies of injuries at ski resorts have found that terrain parks, and jumps especially, pose a significantly greater head/neck injury risk to resort patrons than normal skiing activities [1–4]. One especially hazardous situation is when the jumper lands in an inverted position which can lead to catastrophic injury or death from spinal cord trauma. While jumpers can execute inver...