• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.485-492
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• 2021

Vision-based autonomous precision landing technology for UAVs requires precise position estimation and landing guidance technology. Also, for safe landing, it must be designed to determine the safety of the landing point against ground obstacles and to guide the landing only when the safety is ensured. In this paper, we proposes vision-based navigation, and algorithms for determining the safety of landing point to perform autonomous precision landings. To perform vision-based navigation, CNN technology is used to detect landing pad and the detection information is used to derive an integrated navigation solution. In addition, design and apply Kalman filters to improve position estimation performance. In order to determine the safety of the landing point, we perform the obstacle detection and position estimation in the same manner, and estimate the speed of the obstacle using LSM. The collision or not with the obstacle is determined based on the CPA calculated by using the estimated state of the obstacle. Finally, we perform flight test to verify the proposed algorithm.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.34-42
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• 2024

This study developed a morphing technology applicable to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with diverse flight characteristics. Existing morphing technologies require additional mechanisms and driving devices, posing challenges in constructing features such as ribs and spars within the wing structure, leading to structural instability. To address this, we developed a Variable-Camber and Variable-Chord (VCC) morphing flap that could maintains a continuously transforming surface during deformation, altering both camber shape and chord length simultaneously. Furthermore, we conducted design and fabrication of UAV wings incorporating these morphing flaps, ensuring structural stability by developing specialized shapes. Furthermore, structural experiments were conducted to simulate flight loads, followed by actual flight tests to validate performances of both morphing mechanism and wings. Finally, wind tunnel tests were conducted to compare results with aerodynamic analysis, confirming the effective applicability of this morphing technology.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.391-416
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• 2024

Hybrid composite materials are widely used in various load-bearing structural components of micro - mini UAVs. However, the design of thin laminates for better impact resistance remains a challenge, despite the strong demand for lightweight structures. This work aims to assess the low-velocity impact (LVI) behaviour of thin quasi-isotropic woven carbon/ aramid epoxy hybrid laminates using experimental and numerical techniques. Drop tower impact test with 10 J and 15 J impact energies is performed on carbon/epoxy laminates having aramid layers at different sequences and locations. The impact behaviour is experimentally evaluated using force-time, force-deformation, and energy-time histories considering delamination threshold load, peak load, and laminate deflection. Ultrasonic C-scan is performed on the post-impact samples to analyse the insidious damage profile at different impact energies. The experimental data is further utilized to numerically simulate LVI behaviour by employing the representative volume element model. The numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental data. Numerical and experimental approach predicts that the hybrid laminates with aramid layers at both impact and non-impact sides of the laminate exhibits significant improvement in the overall impact behaviour by having a subcritical damage morphology compared to carbon/epoxy laminate. A combined numerical-experimental approach is proposed for evaluating the effective impact performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.296-303
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• 2015

The concentration of solute in a $NaBH_4$ solution is limited due to the low solubility of $NaBO_2$. The performance of a hydrogen generation system was evaluated using various concentrations of $NaBH_4$ solution. First, a self-hydrolysis test and a hydrogen generation test for 30 min were performed. The composition of $NaBH_4$ solution was selected to be 1 wt% NaOH + 25 wt% $NaBH_4$+74wt% $H_2O$ by considering the amount of hydrogen loss, stability of hydrogen generation, $NaBO_2$ precipitation, conversion efficiency, and the purpose of its application. A hydrogen generation system for a 200 W fuel cell was evaluated for 3 h. Although hydrogen generation rate decreased with time due to $NaBO_2$ precipitation, hydrogen was produced for 3 h (conversion efficiency: 87.4%). The energy density of the 200 W fuel cell system was 263 Wh/kg. A small unmanned aerial vehicle with this fuel cell system can achieve 1.5 times longer flight time than one flying on batteries.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.51-57
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• 2016

Purpose - In the year of 2015 and 2016, one of the items that got attention in CES was a drone. It has been 100 years since a drone emerged, but most were used for military purposes. As its use became diverse as of 2010, it got attention of the general public. In Korea, it was in 2011 that a drone was known to the public through an aerial video shooting for television program. This study tried to come up with suggestions by comparing domestic with overseas cases, and tried to consider the related technologies and systems with applying the role of drones in logistics service. Research design, data, and methodology - The overseas cases were regarded as drone's logistical purpose. The Prime Air service by US Amazon is still not commercialized and under pre-testing due to Federal Aviation Regulations, although it started in 2013. In Germany, DHL succeeded in delivering service testing which is called Parcelcopter, but it is not commercialized yet. Other than these, there are more attempts to prepare logistics service in China with Taobao, in France with Geopost's test, and in Africa. In Korea, CJ Korea Express tested delivery with a self-developed drone Results - In order to study for utilizing drones for logistics as the prerequisites, some overseas and domestic cases, which are currently considered, were reviewed. Also, the technologies and institutional requirements to commercialize drones for logistical purpose were reviewed. The reasons for using drones in logistics is to ensure the price competitiveness by reducing cost. The empirical test also will be needed because drone pilot areas are designated by ministry of land, infrastructure and transport. Conclusions - In order to utilize drones in logistics and foster the industry, this study would like to suggest the followings. First of all, size of drones for logistics needs to be fixed and their operating system should be standardized. Centralized investment resources are needed through standardization to ensure the market occupancy. Secondly, it is necessary to get the converged businesses that do research, develop and commercialize drones with the investment of private sector. Example can be found in Korea aerospace Industries. We can respond to the rapid growth of the market with intensive investing by integrating the private sector investment. Thirdly, institutional arrangements are needed to be established quickly. In the case of high-technologies like drones, institutional support often does not follow the rapid development of the technology. The problems can be found in securing drones-only airspace, creating drone-specialized pilot's license, matters related to remote controller and complementary regulations for drones in Aviation Act. If these regulations are not prepared or complemented at the right timing, technologies cannot be commercialized even though the development is completed. Fourthly, there is a need to secure the transparency regarding possible privacy and personal information protection problem while operating drones. Finally, in order to foster this new industry, government should focus on supporting R&D more in the long term than short term outcomes.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.49-56
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• 2018

In this paper, the performance analysis and the experiment of the brake system using the small piezoelectric-hydraulic pump were performed. Initially, the 3-D modeling of the brake load components was performed for the construction of the brake system. Subsequently, modeling using the commercial program AMESim was performed. A floating caliper model was used as a load for modeling the brake system. Through the AMESim simulation, load pressure, check valve displacement and flow rate under no load state were calculated, and performance analysis and changes in dynamic characteristics were confirmed by adding brake load. A jig for use in fixing the brake load during performance test was manufactured. The flow rate was assessed under no load condition and load pressure formation experiments were performed and compared with simulation results. Experimental results revealed the maximum load pressure as about 73bar at 130Hz and the maximum flow rate as about 203cc/min at 145Hz, which satisfied the requirement of small- and medium-sized UAV braking system. In addition, simulation results revealed that the load pressure and discharge flow rate were within 6% and 5%, respectively. Apparently, the modeling is expected to be effective for brake performance analysis.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.351-360
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• 2024

With the increasing use of drone technology, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is now being utilized in various fields. However, this increased use of drones has resulted in various issues. Due to its small size, the drone is difficult to detect with radar or optical equipment, so acoustical tracking methods have been recently applied. In this paper, a method of localization of multiple drones using the acoustic characteristics of the quadcopter drone is suggested. Because the acoustic characteristics induced by each rotor are differentiated depending on the type of drone and its movement state, the sound source of the drone can be reconstructed by spatially clustering the results of the estimated positions of the blade passing frequency and its harmonic sound source. The reconstructed sound sources are utilized to finally determine the location of multiple-drone sound sources by applying the source localization algorithm. An experiment is conducted to analyze the acoustic characteristics of the test quadcopter drones, and the simulations for three different types of drones are conducted to localize the multiple drones based on the measured acoustic signals. The test result shows that the location of multiple drones can be estimated by utilizing the acoustic characteristics of the drone. Also, one can see that the clarity of the separated drone sound source and the source localization algorithm affect the accuracy of the localization for multiple-drone sound sources.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.854-864
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• 2016

The use of small drone platform has become a popular topic in these days but its application for SAR operation has been little known due to the burden of the payload implementation. Drone platforms are distinguished from the conventional UAV system by the increased vulnerability to the turbulences, control-errors and poor motion stability. Consequently, sophisticated motion compensation may be required to guarantee the successful acquisition of high quality SAR imagery. Extremely limited power and mass budgets may prevent the use of additional hardwares for motion compensation and the difficulty of SAR focusing is further aggravated. In this paper, we have carried out a feasibility study of mico-SAR drone operation. We present the image acquisition results from the preliminary flight tests and a quality assessment is followed on the experimental SAR images. The in-flight motion errors derived from the unique drone movements are investigated and attempts have been made to compensate for the geometrical and phase errors caused by motions against the nominal trajectory. Finally, the successful operation of drone SAR system is validated through the focussed SAR images taken over test sites.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.41 no.10
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• pp.788-795
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• 2013

A magnesium bipolar plate whose surface was protected by thinly deposited silver layer was investigated as an alternative to existing graphite bipolar plate of PEM fuel cells. Thin silver layer of $3{\mu}m$ was deposited on a magnesium alloy substrate by physical vapor deposition (PVD) method in an environment of $180^{\circ}C$. A number of tests were conducted on the fabricated magnesium based bipolar plates to determine their suitability for use in PEM fuel cell stacks. The test on corrosion resistance in the same pH condition as in a PEM operation demonstrated the layer protected the magnesium alloy substrate, while unprotected substrate suffered from severe corrosion. The contact resistance of the fabricated bipolar plate was less than $20m{\Omega}-cm^2$ which was superior to the conventional bipolar plates. A single cell was constructed using the fabricated bipolar plates and power output was measured. Due to the enhanced conductivity caused by low contact resistance, slight increase was observed in current density and output voltage. With low density of the magnesium substrate and ease on machining, the weight reduction of the stack of 30~40 % is possible to produce the same power output.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2021

Detect and avoid (DAA) system, which is essential for the operation of UAS, detects intruding aircraft and offers the ranges of turn and climb/descent maneuver that are required to avoid the intruder. This paper uses detect and avoid alerting logic for unmanned systems (DAIDALUS) developed at NASA as a DAA algorithm. Since DAIDALUS offers ranges of avoidance maneuvers, the actual avoidance maneuver must be decided by the UAS pilot as well as the timing and method of returning to the original route. It can be readily used in real-time human-in-the-loop (HiTL) simulations where a human pilot is making the decision, but a pilot decision model is required in fast-time simulations that proceed without human pilot intervention. This paper proposes a pilot decision model that maneuvers the aircraft based on the DAIDALUS avoidance maneuver range. A series of tests were conducted using test vectors from radio technical commission for aeronautics (RTCA) minimum operational performance standards (MOPS). The alert levels differed by the types of encounters, but loss of well clear (LoWC) was avoided. This model will be useful in fast-time simulation of high-volume traffic involving UAS.