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AE-eNews
Vol. 1, Issue #7
November 2012
Control Software for Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles
Reducing the risk to human lives and ensuring increased levels of operational efficiency, while working in hazardous or hostile environments, has led to the development of unmanned, autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles are supposed to operate without (or with minimal) human supervision under a variety of conditions, using inductive reasoning to come-up with safe and optimal actions to respond to unforeseen circumstances. Nowadays, unmanned aerial, ground, space and underwater vehicles are utilized extensively by both the military and civilian sectors. Currently deployed autonomous vehicles, however, operate at low- to-moderate speeds, and have low- to-moderate maneuverability. In the near future, increased levels of performance are possible by operating autonomous vehicles at the limits of their operational envelope. Unfortunately, decision-making and execution becomes quickly a computationally intractable problem, especially as the time-scales to make these decisions are reduced and/or the computational and communication resources on-board these vehicles are limited.
At Georgia Tech, researchers with Prof. Professor Tsiotras in the Dynamics and Control Systems Laboratory and the Center of Robotics and Intelligent Machines are developing ways to enable more aggressive maneuvering of autonomous vehicles by increasing the numerical efficiency by which these autonomous vehicles make decisions in complex and uncertain environments and under very strict time deadlines.
More information
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Prof. Tim Lieuwen Authors ‘Unsteady Combustor Physics’
Our congratulations to Prof. Tim Lieuwen who is the author of a recently published book entitled Unsteady Combustor Physics. The book discusses a preeminent issue of our time - clean, sustainable energy systems. Most projections indicate that combustion-based energy conversion systems will continue to be the predominant approach for the majority of our energy usage. Unsteady combustor issues pose one of the key challenges associated with the development of clean, high-efficiency combustion systems such as those used for power generation, heating, or propulsion applications. This comprehensive textbook is unique in that it is the first systematic treatment of this subject. This text places particular emphasis on the system dynamics that occur at the intersection of the combustion, fluid mechanics, and acoustic disciplines, synthesizing these fields into a systematic presentation of the intrinsically unsteady processes in combustors.
Tim C. Lieuwen is a Professor in the School of Aerospace Engineering and the Executive Director of Georgia Techs’ Strategic Energy Institute. Dr. Lieuwen’s research interests are generally in the area of energy, environment, and propulsion, particularly in chemically reacting fluid mechanics and acoustics. He has edited 2 books, written 7 book chapters and more than 200 papers, and holds 3 patents. Dr. Lieuwen is editor-in-chief of the AIAA Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics series and has served as associate editor of the Journal of Propulsion and Power, Combustion Science and Technology, and the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute. He is a Fellow of the ASME and is the recipient of various awards, including the AIAA Lawrence Sperry Award, the ASME Westinghouse Silver Medal, ASME best paper awards, Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award, and the NSF CAREER award.
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Message from the Chair
Dear AE Community:
The AE School Advisory Council (AESAC) met in October for one and a half days of discussion and meetings. Council members were briefed on faculty matters, curriculum review, and instructional laboratory renovations. They also met with students. Feedback from the council members focused on student concerns and these will be taken into account as we keep on our goal of upward momentum and progress.
We have initiated several faculty searches recently and look forward to hiring four new faculty members. We anticipate the addition of the new hires to be a big boost to our faculty force. We’ll keep you informed as our
search progresses in fielding and finding the right candidates to bring in.
Once again, we welcome comments and news that you would like to share with the Georgia Tech AE community. We will be happy to post your news on our website and also have a LinkedIn site for AE Alumni and Friends Network ( LinkedIn).
We wish the very best of Thanksgivings to you and yours.
Warmest regards,
Vigor Yang
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Ben T. Zinn Combustion Laboratory to be Dedicated
On Friday, November 2, 2012, the Ben T. Zinn Combustion Laboratory will be dedicated on the Georgia Tech campus. The lab dedication recognizes Zinn's more than 40 years as an aerospace engineering professor at Georgia Tech and his work in combustion processes and instabilities. Prior to the dedication ceremony, there will be the Ben T. Zinn Symposium on Combustion Instabilities, November 1-2, which features speakers from industry, NASA, and universities across the road. The laboratory dedication concludes the two-day celebration with Georgia Tech President Bud Peterson presiding at the ceremony. According to AE Professor and symposium co-organizer Tim Lieuwen, "This is a rare and singular event for a building on campus to be named after a faculty member."
Zinn joined Georgia Tech in 1965 and attained the rank of Regents' Professor in 1973. His fields of research include: control of combustion processes, combustion instabilities in rocket motors, ramjets, jet engine and gas turbines, oscillatory flame phenomena, reacting flows, acoustics and pulse combustion. He has published 117 refereed papers and 213 reports and unrefereed papers, edited two AIAA Progress Series books on combustion diagnostics, wrote the section on "Pulsating Combustion" for a book entitled Advanced Combustion Methods, which was published by Academic Press, and he has given 354 seminars/lectures at various universities and conferences throughout the world. He is also a co-holder of seven patents
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Streaming Videos Now Available on AE Website
We are happy to report that thanks to Smartech, the Georgia Tech Library Repository, videos of AE’s Gebhardt and other seminars will be viewable through the AE website.
AE began videotaping seminars in Aug 2012 and we will be archiving them for the education and enjoyment of visitors to our website. Here are recent seminar video links.
Dr. Charles Elachi, Curiosity’s Landing on Mars & the Future of Space Exploration
Over the last 50 years, JPL spacecraft have visited every planet in our solar system and roved for more than 8 years on the surface of Mars. In addition, space borne telescopes have detected planets around neighboring systems, studied the composition and dynamic of galaxies across the Universe, and monitored changes in our planet’s surface and atmosphere. At a recent presentation, Dr. Charles Elachi discussed the challenges of robotic space and Earth exploration, highlights of Curiosity’s recent landing on Mars, and presented some of the engineering and technological challenges for future missions of exploration and discovery.
Dr. Charles Elachi has served as the Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since May 2001. He is also Vice President of the California Institute of Technology.
View the video
Prof. George Lesieutre, Damping Models for Shear Beams with Applications to Spacecraft Wiring Harnesses
Damping is an important aspect of aerospace structures designed to operate in dynamic environments. Wiring harnesses can significantly affect the dynamics of spacecraft structures. High-fidelity models of the coupled structure-cable dynamic system are needed to accurately predict launch loads and potential control system interactions. At a recent seminar, Prof. Lesieutre presented an analytical approach that models this complex phenomenon accurately.
Prof. George Lesieutre is the Department Head of Aerospace Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University and the Director of its Center for Acoustics and Vibration .
View the video
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Prof. Panagiotis Tsiotras Appointed Dean's Professor
In recognition of his enormous accomplishments and contributions to the AE School and the aerospace profession, Prof. Panagiotis Tsiotras was appointed by Dean Gary May as a College of Engineering Dean's Professor.
Dr. Panagiotis Tsiotras is a Professor at the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech and the Director of the Dynamics and Control Systems Laboratory in the same School. He is also affiliated with the Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines and the Center for Space Systems at Georgia Tech. Professor Tsiotras' area of expertise is on dynamics and controls, with emphasis on optimal and nonlinear control for mechanical and aerospace systems. He has authored or co-authored more than 250 technical papers in these areas. Recently, his work has shifted to algorithmic control design and optimal decision-making for autonomous systems. He is currently the lead PI of a three-University MURI project dealing with linking perception and control for agile autonomous vehicles operating in uncertain environments.
Professor Tsiotras holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering and Mathematics. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 1998, he was a faculty member at the University of Virginia (1994-1998). He has also held visiting research positions at INRIA-Rocquencourt, in France and the Center of Automation and Systems at Ècole des Mines de Paris, also in France. He has served on the Editorial Boards of the AIAA Journal of Guidance Control and Dynamics, the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, and the Sigma Xi award for Excellence in Research. He is a Fellow of AIAA, and a Senior Member of the IEEE.
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Carbon-Neutral Energy Solution Laboratory (CNESL)
Recently, Georgia Tech built a $24 million dollar Carbon-Neutral Energy Solution Laboratory (CNESL). This facility will house cutting-edge energy research in the areas of combustion, gasification, and separations for CO2 capture. A key vision of this building is to perform experiments at operating conditions to allow the solution of problems associated with scale up from bench to pilot demonstrations. We are now planning the combustion research infrastructure for the new building. Our vision is to create a combustion facility that fills the gap between the small scale, low pressure facilities that are available at a number of research institutions and the highly constrained, large scale test facilities currently used by industry. In particular, our overriding goal is to address fundamental questions at real conditions. In other words, we want to further our mission as the premier combustion educational/research facility in the world, by focusing upon fundamental issues while educating the next generation of engineers. We recognize that it is crucial to perform these investigations in a design space that is interesting and directed toward the pressing real world problems that we want to help solve.
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Upcoming Events
Nov 1-2, 2012
Zinn Symposium on Combustion Dynamics
Nov 1, 2012
“The Role of NASA in the 21st Century”
NIA 10th Anniversary Inaugural Lecture
Dr. Robert D. Braun
1:00pm, Rm 137, NIA Headquarters
100 Exploration Way
Hampton, VA
Nov 8, 2012
Seminar
“Rotorcraft Technology Trends and Opportunities”
Dr. Mark Wasikowski
Bell Helicopter
6:00-9:00pm (Joint AIAA/AHS dinner meeting)
Guggenheim 442
Nov 8, 2012
“Innovation, Skunk Works® Style”
Gebhardt Distinguished Lecture
Dr. Al Romig
Vice President & General Manager
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics
Advanced Development Programs, Skunk Works®
3:30pm, Guggenheim 442
Nov 27, 2012
“Environmentally Responsible Aviation-Technology Development to Mitigate the Environmental Impacts of Aviation”
NIA 10th Anniversary Lecture
Dr. Fayette (Fay) S. Collier, Jr.
1:00pm, Rm 137, NIA Headquarters
100 Exploration Way
Hampton, VA
Dec 6, 2012
“Inventing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter”
Gebhardt Distinguished Lecture
Dr. Paul Bevilaqua
Distinguished Professor
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
University of Miami, Florida
3:30pm, Guggenheim 442
Dec 6, 2012
“Opportunities for Next Generation Aircraft Enabled by Revolutionary Materials”
NIA 10th Anniversary Lecture
Dr. Charles E. Harris
1:00pm, Rm 137, NIA Headquarters
100 Exploration Way
Hampton, VA
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The Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology