Abstract: The exploration of Earth-like exoplanets will be enabled at mid-infrared wavelengths through technology and engineering advances in nulling interferometry and precision formation flying. Nulling interferometry provides the dynamic range needed for the detection of biomarkers. Formation flying provides the angular resolution required in the mid-infrared to separately distinguish the sp...

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) flying on NASA’s EOS-AQUA platform has channels sensitive to both sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitric acid (HNO3). We have developed a simple regression retrieval for both of these gases that illustrates the potential for AIRS, and other hyperspectral sounders, to retrieve these two gases. We have cross-validated the SO2 retrievals to those from the OMI instr...

In this paper, the authors proposed a novel idea of a long-reach flying inkjet system employing electrostatically-accelerated ink drop for the purpose of functional ink micro pattern plotting by contact-free and environment friendly. Proposed working principle was demonstrated through experiment and analysis. At the 5-mm of electrode gap and φ 120 m μ of nozzle, the applicable maximum voltage w...

This paper proposes a three-dimensional motion capture and feedback system of flying disc throwing action learners with use of Kinect device. Rather than conventional 3-D motion capture system, Kinect has advantages of cost merit, easy system development and operation. A novice learner of flying disc is trained to keep arm movement in steady height, to twist the waist, and to stretch the elbow ...

The authors studied the effects of marijuana intoxication on the ability of 10 certified airplane pilots to operate a flight simulator. They used a randomized double-blind crossover design to compare the effect of active versus placebo marijuana. They found that all 10 pilots showed a significant decrease in measurements of flying performance 30 minutes after smoking active marijuana. For a gro...

Autonomous flight in cluttered environments such as houses or offices requires high maneuverability, fast mapping from sensors to actuators and extremely light overall weight. Although flying insects are well capable to solve this problem, roboticists have been at pain to reproduce such capabilities. At the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, we are taking inspiration from flying insects to prog...

A detailed investigation including a low-speed flow study is presented on the development of ultra-light dragonfly mimetic flying robots with a focus on the dragonfly’s remarkable gliding capability. It is revealed that the dragonfly’s corrugated wing structure and cruciform configuration provide superior flying characteristics for fixed wing robots in low Reynolds number flight. It was also fo...

This paper focuses on the flying inverted pendulum problem, i.e balancing a pendulum on a flying vehicle. After analyzing the system dynamic, a three loop cascade control strategy based on active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) is proposed. Not only the pendulum balancing, but also the trajectory tracking of the vehicle can be realized successfully even when strong disturbances exist. The ...

A novel method of measuring the relative headmedium spacing based on a measurement in the servo sectors is developed and simulated using a read back signal model. The spacing measurement is tested experimentally on a spin stand where the flying height is varied using the resistance heater element in a thermal flying height control slider. In addition, voltage step response measurements were obt...

We describe a novel inertial navigation system based on measurement fusion which includes stereo-vision among its sensors. The vision-augmented system provides enhanced accuracy in the estimation of the vehicle states when flying in proximity of obstacles, and can operate without GPS signal, for example when flying under vegetation cover, indoors or in complex urban environments. Scene feature ...