Very low thrust station-keeping for low Earth orbiting satellites

Traditional station-keeping for Earth observation satellites with chemical thrusters generally involves maneuvers every couple months that are able to change significantly the semi-major axis and the inclination. These strategies do not scale down to very low thrust level (a few hundreds of μN) electrical thrusters. This paper presents both in-plane and out-of-plane strategies that spread corrections over very long arcs and discretize them to tiny maneuvers every couple orbits, taking into account mission-constraints on maneuvers locations. These strategies scale up to medium thrust strategies, filling the gap between propulsion technologies. The out-of-plane strategy although features a new no-deadband property and controls the full orbital momentum. All strategies allow control very close to the reference (a few hundreds meters in osculating parameters) and very low cost.     

Imaginary filtered hindsight experience replay for UAV tracking dynamic targets in large-scale unknown environments

As an advanced combat weapon, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been widely used in military wars. In this paper, we formulated the Autonomous Navigation Control (ANC) problem of UAVs as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and proposed a novel Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) method to allow UAVs to perform dynamic target tracking tasks in large-scale unknown environments. To solve the problem of limited training experience, the proposed Imaginary Filtered Hindsight Experience Replay (IFHER) generates successful episodes by reasonably imagining the target trajectory in the failed episode to augment the experiences. The well-designed goal, episode, and quality filtering strategies ensure that only high-quality augmented experiences can be stored, while the sampling filtering strategy of IFHER ensures that these stored augmented experiences can be fully learned according to their high priorities. By training in a complex environment constructed based on the parameters of a real UAV, the proposed IFHER algorithm improves the convergence speed by 28.99% and the convergence result by 11.57% compared to the state-of-the-art Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3) algorithm. The testing experiments carried out in environments with different complexities demonstrate the strong robustness and generalization ability of the IFHER agent. Moreover, the flight trajectory of the IFHER agent shows the superiority of the learned policy and the practical application value of the algorithm.     

Flame features and oscillation characteristics in near-blowout swirl-stabilized flames using high-speed OH-PLIF and mode decomposition methods

Flame features and dynamics are important to the explanation and prediction of a lean blowout (LBO) phenomenon. In this paper, recognition of near-LBO flame features and oscillation characterization methods were proposed based on flame spectroscopic images. High-speed planar laser-induced fluorescence measurements of OH were used to capture unique dynamic features such as the local extinction and reignition feature and entrained reactant pockets. The Zernike moment demonstrated a good performance in recognition of stability and near-LBO conditions, though the geometric moment had more advantages to characterize frequency characteristics. Low-frequency oscillations, especially at the obvious self-excited oscillation frequency around 200 Hz, were found when approaching an LBO condition, which can be expected to be used as a novel prediction characteristic parameter of the flameout limit. Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) were used to conduct dynamic analysis of near-LBO flames. POD modes spectra showed the unique frequency characteristics of stable and near-LBO flames, which were basically in line with those at the heat-release frequency. The primary POD modes demonstrated that the radial vibration mode dominated in a stable flame, while the rotation mode was found to exist in a near-LBO flame. Analysis of modal decomposition showed that flame shedding and agminated entrained reactant pockets were responsible for generating self-excited flame oscillations.     

Real-time modular dynamic modeling for compression system of altitude ground test facilities

Modeling of a centrifugal compressor is of great significance to surge characteristics and fluid dynamics in the Altitude Ground Test Facilities (AGTF). Real-time Modular Dynamic System Greitzer (MDSG) modeling for dynamic response and simulation of the compression system is introduced. The centrifugal compressor, pipeline network, and valve are divided into pressure output type and mass flow output type for module modeling, and the two types of components alternate when the system is established. The pressure loss and thermodynamics of the system are considered. An air supply compression system of AGTF is modeled and simulated by the MDSG model. The simulation results of mass flow, pressure, and temperature are compared with the experimental results, and the error is less than 5%, which demonstrates the reliability, practicability, and universality of the MDSG model.     

Review on ultra-lightweight flapping-wing nano air vehicles: Artificial muscles,flight control mechanism,and biomimetic wings

Flying insects are capable of flapping their wings to provide the required power and control forces for flight. A coordinated organizational system including muscles, wings, and control architecture plays a significant role, which provides the sources of inspiration for designing flapping-wing vehicles. In recent years, due to the development of micro-and meso-scale manufacturing technologies, advances in components technologies have directly led to a progress of smaller Flapping-Wing Nano Air V...     

Novel attitude determination method by integration of electronic level meter,INS, and low-cost turntable for level attitude evaluation and calibration of INS

Attitude references are greatly needed for the evaluation and calibration of Inertial Navigation Systems (INSs), which are widely used in gravimeter, marine, and aeronautical navigation. High-accuracy turntable, INS, and Global Navigation Satellite System have been utilized to verify the performance of relatively low-accuracy INS. The accuracy requirement of the attitude reference continuously increases with the rapid improvement of inertial sensors and navigation algorithms. However, the cost of attitude determination system increases rapidly with the increase of attitude accuracy requirement. To solve this limitation, the integration of level meter, INS, and low-cost turntable is proposed to provide level attitude, such as roll and pitch. The turntable is utilized to rotate the INS. An integration model of the level meter and INS is built to estimate the level attitude and reduce the cost of the turntable. The proposed method successfully avoids the dependence on high-accuracy turntables. An observability degree analysis is conducted to improve the level attitude accuracy further. The simulation and turntable test results indicate that the proposed method can provide high-accuracy level attitude without high-accuracy INS or turntable and is applicable to error calibration and attitude evaluation of INS.     

A novel temperature-compensation method based on correlation analysis for multi-FOG INS

Aimed at improving the bias stability of Fiber-Optic Gyroscope (FOG)-based inertial navigation systems in environments of various ambient temperatures, a novel temperature-compensation method based on a correlation analysis of the same batch of FOGs is proposed. The empirical mode decomposition method was employed to filter the high-frequency noises of the FOGs. Then, the correlation information of the multiple FOGs was used to analyze the feasibility of the method. Eventually, the same residual error of the FOGs was compensated via the simple piecewise linear models. The experimental results indicate that excellent compensation effects for both high- and low-accuracy FOGs are achieved using the proposed method. Specifically, the accuracies of high-accuracy FOGs are improved by approximately 33.9%, 20%, and 31.2%, while those of low-accuracy FOGs are improved by approximately 39.1%, 20.8%, and 26.1%. The method exhibits the merits of simplicity, validity, and stability, and thus is expected to be widely used in engineering applications.     

Modularity,reconfigurability, and autonomy for the future in spacecraft: A review

The shape of a spacecraft is transitioning from monolithic, manual, and static to modular, autonomous, and dynamic. Modular Reconfigurable Spacecrafts (MRSs) offer better solutions than traditional monolithic spacecrafts in several aspects, and may become the next generation of spacecraft systems with efficient design, fast deployment, flexible application, and convenient management. This paper reviews the development and technology of MRS from three aspects: Modularity, reconfigurability, and autonomy. Despite the progress of research on MRS, there is still a lack of unified standards and little understanding of related concepts. Based on the understanding of basic concepts, the studies conducted on MRS are reviewed to identify technical requirements and solutions. Aiming at the future development trend of MRS, a novel modular self-reconfigurable spacecraft, referred to as MagicSat, is proposed. Furthermore, the MagicSat system composition, advantages, and application prospects are studied. The enabling technologies and major challenges of MRS are further analyzed in terms of modularization, integrated management, and self-reconfiguration technologies. Finally, the future development trend of MRS technology is predicted, and corresponding suggestions are provided.     

Optimization design of airfoils under atmospheric icing conditions for UAV

Natural ice accretion on the lifting surface of an aircraft is detrimental to its aerodynamic performance, as it changes the effective streamlined body. The main focus of this work considers the optimization design of airfoils under atmospheric icing conditions for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV). The ice formation process is simulated by the Eulerian approach and the three-dimensional Myers model. A three-equation turbulence model is implemented to accurately predict the stall performance of t...     

Investigation of flow unsteadiness in a highly-loaded compressor cascade using a dynamic mode decomposition method

Unsteady flow in the hub endwall region has long been a hot topic in the turbomachinery community. However important it is to the performance of the whole engine, the coherent unsteady flow phenomena are still not well understood. In this paper, the complex flow field in the hub endwall of a cantilevered compressor cascade has been investigated through numerical approach. The predicted results were validated by experimental data. To highlight the dominant flow structures among irregular and chao...