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On the Design and Optimization of an Autonomous Microgravity Enabling Aerial Robot

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 Added by Juan-Pablo Afman
 Publication date 2016
and research's language is English




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This paper describes the process and challenges behind the design and development of a micro-gravity enabling aerial robot. The vehicle, designed to provide at minimum 4 seconds of micro-gravity at an accuracy of .001 gs, is designed with suggestions and constraints from both academia and industry as well a regulatory agency. The feasibility of the flight mission is validated using a simulation environment, where models obtained from system identification of existing hardware are implemented to increase the fidelity of the simulation. The current development of a physical test bed is described. The vehicle employs both control and autonomy logic, which is developed in the Simulink environment and executed in a Pixhawk flight control board.



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