3rd_year_projects

Supervised 3rd YEAR PROJECTS 1998-1999

Supervisor: Dr W.J.Crowther
Project Title: Falcon Aerodynamics

Aims

To determine the diving speed of a peregrine falcon in various dive postures

Objectives:

Characterise falcon diving postures and associated aerodynamics
Develop dynamic simulation of diving manoeuvre
Design wind tunnel bird support rig
Obtain lift and drag characteristics for different postures
Determine optimum postures for stability and maximum velocity

Description of Project:
Within the world of falconry, there is currently some debate over the maximum speed birds are able to achieve in a dive. This project seeks to answer this question by obtaining wind tunnel drag measurements of frozen bird specimens in various dive postures. The project is to be carried out in collaboration with a business in Oldham, Manchester (http://www.falconiform.co.uk/) that breeds and trains falcons.

Nature of Project (e.g. Computing, Experimental, etc.)
Experimental (wind tunnel tests), Computing (simulation)
Workshop Requirements and Time:
Manufacture and installation of wind tunnel support rig (1 week)
Experiment Facilities Required and Time:
Barton project tunnel, 1 week of testing.

Supervisor: Dr W.J.Crowther
Project Title: Manchester Unmanned Air Vehicle
Project 1: Vehicle design and test
Aims:
To design, build and wind tunnel test a small scale research platform for investigating novel sensing and control strategies for flight vehicles.

Objectives:

Specify payload and performance requirements
Design and build airframe
Install and calibrate propulsion systems
Obtain wind tunnel measurements of steady longitudinal and lateral aerodynamic derivatives
Investigate ground and free-flight radio controlled handling qualities for a range of payloads

Description of Project: A small-scale flight vehicle is required for investigating novel control and sensing strategies. The project student requires previous experience of aero-modelling and/or is a team member for the BMFA competition.

Nature of Project (e.g. Computing, Experimental, etc.)
Experimental (wind tunnel testing, system calibration)
Workshop Requirements and Time:
Model building support (3 days). Wind tunnel support rig manufacture and installation (one week)
Experiment Facilities Required and Time:
Barton Environmental or 2.75 m x 2.13 m tunnel, one week.

Supervisor: Dr W.J.Crowther
Project Title: Manchester Unmanned Air Vehicle
Project 2: Control system design
Aims:

To design and test a UAV flight control system suitable for implementation on a microcontroller

Objectives:

Develop flight vehicle dynamic model using the Matlab Simulink simulation environment
Identify speed/memory limitations of microcontroller hardware
Specify controller performance goals
Design and implement controller in Simulink
Validate controller performance using simulation

Description of Project:
A control system is required for the flight vehicle being developed as MUAV project 1. The control system is to be developed using a simulation of the flight vehicle developed using Matlab/Simulink. The control system is to implemented using C on a micro controller. Microcontrollers are relatively cheap self-contained computing devices suitable for embedded computing applications.

Nature of Project (e.g. Computing, Experimental, etc.)
Simulation, computing, electronics.
Workshop Requirements and Time:
None
Experiment Facilities Required and Time:
Micro controller development suite, 3 weeks.

Project Title: Manchester Unmanned Air Vehicle Project:
3. Air data system
Aim:

To build and test an air data system for a UAV

Objectives:

Specify vehicle air data sensor requirements
Specify sensors and signal conditioning hardware
Design data acquisition system
Implement data acquisition system on microcontroller hardware
Calibrate sensor system in wind tunnel
Validate system accuracy and data handling performance

Description of Project:
An air data system is required for the vehicle developed as MUAV project 1. The system needs to measure and record air speed and angle of attack. The system should be small and self-contained such that it can be used for other in-flight data acquisition applications. An interest in electronics and instrumentation would be useful. Some C programming may be involved.

Nature of Project (e.g. Computing, Experimental, etc.)
Experimental, computing
Workshop Requirements and Time:
3 days technician for wind tunnel rig fabrication
Experiment Facilities Required and Time:
Barton project tunnel, 3 days

Project Title: Manchester Unmanned Air Vehicle
Project 4: Global Positioning System
Aim:

To build and evaluate a global positioning system for a UAV

Objectives:

Review commercially available GPS units
Design communications architecture
Implement GPS
Develop display software
Demonstrate spatial tracking capability

Description of Project:
Global positioning systems use information from satellites to determine a 3d location fix. Such a system is required for the vehicle developed as MAUV project 1. Low cost GPS units are currently available as off-the-shelf items. This project will entail commissioning of a GPS unit and communications link, and development of software for displaying vehicle position on a lap top computer.

Nature of Project (e.g. Computing, Experimental, etc.)
Experimental, computing
Workshop Requirements and Time:
Electronics technician, 1 week.
Experiment Facilities Required and Time:
Bench space

Supervisor: Dr W.J.Crowther
Project Title: Neural Network flow velocity and direction sensor

Aim:

To develop and test a new type of sensor for measuring wind speed and direction

Objectives:

Review previous work on neural network flow sensing
Design sensor unit
Obtain wind tunnel data
Train neural network
Evaluate sensor accuracy

Description of Project:
Neural networks are becoming established tools for finding patterns in complex data sets. This project involves building and testing a new type of device that can determine wind speed and direction from the measurement of unsteady pressure distributions around a circular cylinder.

Nature of Project (e.g. Computing, Experimental, etc.)
Experimental, computing for NN training and development
Workshop Requirements and Time:
Fabrication of sensor, 3 days.
Experiment Facilities Required and Time:
Simon Bldg teaching wind tunnel, 2 weeks

Project Title: Interactive Water Rocket Simulation
Aim:

To develop an interactive simulation environment for investigating compressed air water rocket performance.

Objectives:

Evaluate existing simulation package
Specify learning objectives
Develop thermodynamic model of compressed air release
Develop aerodynamic stability and performance model
Evaluate simulation against experimental results
Evaluate learning outcomes from using simulation

Description of Project:
First year Aerospace students build and test a compressed air water rocket as part of their Week One activities. An important part of the activity is choosing various design parameters for the rocket. This process is aided through using a simple simulation package written using Visual Basic. An improved interactive learning environment is required, as well as a more accurate physical model. The project will involve programming in Visual Basic.

Nature of Project (e.g. Computing, Experimental, etc.)
Mainly computing, some experiment
Workshop Requirements and Time:
None
Experiment Facilities Required and Time:
None

Adaptive Acoustic Air jet Project Overview
Dr W.J.Crowther
18 August 1998

Background
Sound is produced in organ pipes and instruments from the penny whistle family by the action of a rectangular air jet against a fixed edge, or fipple plate. The fundamental pitch of the tone produced depends primarily on the length of the attached pipe. However, as a secondary, smaller effect, the velocity of the air jet also affects pitch. This means that a given pipe of fixed geometry can only be played in tune at a single blowing pressure. For larger organs, changes in music volume are created by either using different sets of pipes for different volumes, or by using mechanical louvers standing in front of the pipe.

With instruments such as the end-blown and traverse flute, careful control of the player's lip position enables the change in pitch with blowing velocity to be corrected such that notes may be played in-tune at range of volumes. This project will investigate the use of a pair of piezoceramic bimorph actuators as an adaptive nozzle for use on organ pipes. The adaptive nozzle will enable a single organ pipe to be sounded in tune at a range of volumes.

The use of piezoceramic actuators enables a high system bandwith and offers the future possibility of influencing the timbre of the sound by selective enhancement of overtones.

Aims

To design, build and test an adaptive nozzle for an organ pipe
To establish a nozzle geometry control law that enables the pipe to be played in tune over a range of blowing pressures

Objectives

Review theory of pipe acoustics and air reed generators.
Design and build adaptive nozzle/pipe rig
Calibrate bimorph actuator geometry (deflection/volt)
Measure pipe sounding frequency for a range of blowing pressures and nozzle geometries
Establish nozzle geometry/blowing pressure control law
Demonstrate volume control at constant pitch

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