Senior Design 2014-2015

Course Coordinator: Dale Lawrence
Course Assistant: Ryan Slabaugh
Professional Advisory Board (PAB): Dale Lawrence, Xinlin Li, Donna Gerren, James Nabity, John Farnsworth, Jelliffe Jackson, Trudy Schwartz, Matt Rhode

10 Teams:

  • ANACONDA: Antenna with Autonomous, Continuous, Data Transfer
  • ASTERIA: Aloft Stratospheric Testbed for Experimental Research on Infrasonic Activity
  • BLISS: Boundary Layer In-Situ Sensing System
  • ETHOS: Earth Horizon Sensor
  • SPECTRE: Solar-sail Pitch Enabling Controller Through Root Excitation
  • MEDUSA: Methane Engine Design for Unmanned Small Aircraft
  • MODEFLIER: Mode-Demonstrating Flying Laboratory: Instruction and Experiment in Real-time
  • PHOENIX: 2U cubeSat mid-wave infrared camera proto-flight payload, a precursor to the flight camera unit for the LMCO bus
  • RACER: Rappelling Cave Exploration Rover
  • STATIS: Systematic Testbed Apparatus for Thermal Infrared Sensors

 

ANACONDA

ANACONDA will design and construct an autonomous tracking and communication support system for an antenna to be used to track unmanned aircraft during flight.View photos »

ASTERIA

Aloft Stratospheric Testbed for Experimental Research on Infrasonic Activity (ATERIA) will develop a protoflight high-altitude balloon payload capable of measuring infrasonic events of frequencies between 0.1 and 20 Hz with a minimum amplitude of 0.1 Pa.View photos »

BLISS

Boundary Layer In-Situ Sensing System (BLISS) will deliver Northrop Grumman a 3 dimensional U-,V-,W- inertial wind vector in a measurement cylinder defined by a 100 meter radius and 200 meter height computed from in-situ measurements and an observation of the cloud conditions above the defined cylinder.View photos »

ETHOS

Earth Horizon Sensor (ETHOS) will create and test a prototype Earth horizon sensor, that will be tested in a laboratory environment while simulating a specific spectrum of the Earth as seen from simulated altitudes of 250 to 750 km.View photos »

MEDUSA

Methane Combustion and Control for a Mini Gas Turbine (MEDUSA) will modify an existing JetCat P90-RXI engine that uses a kerosene-oil mixture for both fuel and lubrication to run off gaseous methane as a fuel source.View photos »

MODEFLIER

Mode-Demonstrating Flying Laboratory: Instruction and Experiment in Real-time (MODEFLIER) will develop a small, low-cost system to exhibit phugoid, spiral, and Dutch roll modes that are visible from the ground, downlink and display real-time flight data, and record in-flight video.View photos »

Phoenix

Phoenix will develop and test a 2U cubeSat mid-wave infrared camera proto-flight payload, a precursor to the flight camera unit for the LMCO bus mission.View photos »

RACER

RAppelling Cave Exploration Rover (RACER) will design, build, and verify a rappelling child rover that can deploy from the legacy TREADS mother rover.View photos »

SPECTRE

Solar-sail Pitch Enabling Controller Through Root Excitation (SPECTRE) will design and prototype a heliogyro sail blade controller for a proposed heliogyro cubesat mission.View photos »

STATIS

Systematic Testbed Apparatus for Thermal Infrared Sensors (STATIS) will design, build and validate the functionality of a test bed that will characterize a range of commercial off the shelf (COTS) non-contact infrared temperature sensors, by testing their accuracy and precision over variable distance and temperature and on different target surfaces when compared to contact based temperature sensors, in a simulated space environment.View photos »