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Briefs

Design

Fixed-Wing Angle eVTOL

New design removes the need for mechanisms to perform active tilting of the wings or rotors, reducing system mass.

Briefs

Manned Systems

Simulations Provide Understanding of Spacecraft Landing Dynamics

The simulations provide insight on the models needed to simulate a full-scale landing event.

Briefs

Imaging

Development of a 94 GHz Radar System for Dedicated Bird Detection at Airports and Airfields

BIRDAR™ detected small birds at distances of 1.2 to 1.3 km and large birds.

Briefs

Automotive

Meringue-Like Material Reduces Aircraft Noise

The low-density, graphene-based aerogel could make aircraft as quiet as a hairdryer.

Articles

Materials

Developing Thermoplastic Composites for Use in Commercial Aircraft

Thermoplastic composite materials (TPC) are gaining momentum for use in commercial airplanes and other aerospace applications, including electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

Briefs

Data Acquisition

Predicting In-Flight Air Density for More Accurate Landing

An algorithm runs onboard a vehicle, providing important real-time data to aid in steering the craft.

News

Robotics, Automation & Control

CES 2021: Cadillac Shows off Multiple EV Concepts

Cadillac unveiled three electric vehicle (EV) concepts at CES 2021. They included the Halo Portfolio autonomous van, the VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) Concept autonomous aircraft...

Articles

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Designing Connectivity Solutions for an Electric Aircraft Future

Learn how to take on a “follow-the-wire” design approach.

News

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

The Electric, Autonomous Revolution Lifts Off

Nearly a quarter-century ago, the Vertical Flight Society, a helicopter-industry group founded in 1943 as the American Helicopter Society, published a graphic dubbed “V/STOL Aircraft and...

Articles

Aerospace

Mars 2020 – Getting to Mars

Perseverance will have the ability to land in more challenging terrain than Curiosity, making more rugged sites eligible as safe landing candidates.

Application Briefs

Motion Control

Multiple Sensors Aid in Development of an Electrical Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft

Beta Technologies is putting their Electrical Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft (eVTOL) prototype through the wringer.

Application Briefs

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Modified Fittings Enhance Industrial Safety

NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is home to one of the largest buildings in the world — the massive Vehicle Assembly Building — and also hosts a number of one-of-a-kind facilities. The...

Briefs

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Flow Disruption Devices for the Reduction of High Lift System Noise

This technique lowers airstream noise generated at the side edges of deployed flaps, elevons, or slats.

Application Briefs

Photonics/Optics

A Vision-Based Lunar Navigator for Next-Generation Landers

Learn about the Draper Multi-Environment Navigator.

Briefs

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Aircraft Vertical Takeoff and Landing

NASA’s Langley Research Center developed an inexpensive, long-endurance, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). It is capable of flying for 24 hours, landing in a 50 × 50...

Briefs

AR/AI

Neural Lander Uses AI to Land Drones Smoothly

Landing multi-rotor drones smoothly is difficult. Complex turbulence is created by the airflow from each rotor bouncing off the ground during a descent. This turbulence is not well understood nor is it easy to compensate for, particularly for autonomous drones. That is why takeoff and landing are...

Briefs

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Origami-Inspired Material Softens Impact Forces

Landing is stressful on a rocket’s legs because they must handle the force from the impact with the landing pad. One way to combat this is to build legs out of materials that absorb some of...

News

Aerospace

Honeywell Debuts Fly-By-Wire System for Urban Air Mobility, Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft

Honeywell (NYSE:HON) engineers in Phoenix have packed the “brains” of an airliner’s flight controls into a “fly-by-wire”...

News

Automotive

Lockheed Martin Validates Heatshield for the Mars 2020 Rover Mission

Lockheed Martin Corporation (Lockheed Martin) successfully completed development and testing for the heatshield that will protect NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)...

News

Unmanned Systems

Is the Future of Aerial Autonomy up in the Air?

At January’s CES ’19, more than 170 exhibitors showed aerial drones of various shapes and sizes. Potential use cases for these devices appear to be limitless, but technical, legal and...

Briefs

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Flexible, Spinning Heat Shield for Spacecraft

Heat shields are essentially used as the brakes to stop spacecraft from burning up and crashing on entry and reentry into a planet's atmosphere. Current spacecraft heat shield methods include...

Briefs

Energy

Real-Time, Fuel-Optimal, Powered Descent Guidance Using Interpolated Time-of-Flight and Propellant Mass

Soft landing using rockets requires a trajectory to be planned for the lander from rocket ignition — typically several kilometers in altitude and moving at up to 200 m/s — to the point near the surface with near-zero velocity. The exact...

Application Briefs

Defense

Deployable – Instrument Landing System

Thales Group
Cedex, France
+ 33(0)1 57 77 86 26
www.thalesgroup.com

The United States Air Force's (USAF) activities to establish air superiority and support ground combat units often...

Application Briefs

Aerospace

Aircraft Parachute Recovery Systems

BRS Aerospace
South St. Paul, MN
651-457-7491
www.brsaerospace.com

BRS Aerospace has engaged Wichita State University's National Institute for Aviation Research (WSU-NIAR) to develop...

Briefs

Sensors/Data Acquisition

Synthetic Aperture Radar for Helicopter Landing in Degraded Visual Environments

The development of sensors to assist helicopter landing in degraded visual environments (DVEs) is currently an important US Army requirement addressing the...

Briefs

Aerospace

Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) Aircraft with Vectored Thrust for Control and Continuously Variable Pitch Attitude in Hover

Most fixed-wing VTOL unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) take off vertically, then transition to horizontal flight. This is a new type of UAV that has unique capability. It can vary its hover position from “nose up”...

News

Robotics, Automation & Control

Soyuz MS-10 Launch Abort Prompts Investigation into Booster Anomaly

NASA officials in Washington are pledging to conduct a thorough investigation into the cause of an anomaly with a rocket booster on the Soyuz MS-10 manned spacecraft,...

News

Propulsion

Final Orion Capsule Parachute System Test Successful

A team of engineers from NASA and Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. successfully completed the eighth and final test of the Orion spacecraft Capsule Parachute Assembly System...

Articles

Aerospace

Engine Air-Brakes

Airplanes, one of humanity's greatest inventions, evoke feelings of awe and amazement for most people, unless you live uncomfortably close to a major airport, in which case the feeling may become annoyance and irritation....