This design team developed a remote-controlled unmanned aircraft for the 2018-2019 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Design/Build/Fly competition April 11-14 in Tucson, Arizona, pushing the design of a short takeoff portable vehicle capable of handling diverse payloads.The team developed a minimum-sized, twin-engine flying wing design with a custom power source. The design features a control surface layout consisting of elevons and an independent elevator with differential thrust introduced for directional control. The vehicle was designed to embrace the lift-producing advantages of propeller down wash over its top surface.
The design was put through an aggressive flight-testing and prototyping schedule. Initial tests validated stability and control predictions and final tests evaluated and optimized the vehicle’s mission scoring capabilities.

Scientists at UA’s Earth Dynamics Observatory monitor climate change by studying ice sheets. They hope to create new comprehensive maps of the Antarctic and Greenlandic ice sheets using a small satellite-mounted sounding radar system. This system will use 50 megahertz radar pulses to detect layering and depth information over immense swaths of ice. To support the sounding radar, subsystems for power, interface and communications were designed. Specific considerations were accounted for through trade studies comparing commercial off-the shelf options. Analysis of component performance against system requirements was conducted using Matlab, Solidworks and STK software. Custom-built prototypes of non-readily available components, the instrument interface and antenna deployment system allowed hardware testing to prove conceptual readiness. Integrating these components together created a CubeSat concept that accommodates the requirements of a sounding instrument that could survive over 60 days of operation in space.

Radar sounding of Earth’s glaciers and ice sheets is performed on the surface or in the air, but current techniques provide limited data pertaining to subsurface and bed topography. Data gathering is time consuming, and land coverage is limited by weather and costs. A CubeSat design with a sounder radar and camera systems can provide full coverage of glaciers and ice sheets. The CubeSat will be placed in a low Earth polar orbit for four months, and will provide radar sounding in the dark side of orbit and camera data in the light side. The subsystems maximize the performance of the system as a whole while minimizing mass and volume and providing sufficient power and a high data transfer rate. The four 1.5-meter antennas have a low mass and volume to allow simple deployment with minimal effects on the rest of the system.

Haul road width can greatly affect the mine-able volume requirements in large-scale open pit mines, so a reduction in road width is expected to reduce direct costs by minimizing mining tonnage. Slide 2 software determined that narrower roads did not affect safety for the effective pit slope angles. The original design of a large-scale mine was replicated in MineSight, and a volumetric report was generated for the road width standard of three and a half times the width of the largest truck. Two alternative road widths were evaluated: three times the truck width and two and a half times the width. A volumetric comparison found that mines with narrower haul roads were smaller, more selective and ultimately did not require moving as much material. Financial analyses were then completed regarding savings on less material movement, reduced drilling and blasting costs, and savings on road maintenance. Direct mining cost savings could exceed millions of dollars in large-scale operations. Safety concerns due to narrower roads can be mitigated by using existing autonomous haul systems that do not require manned vehicles.

To prepare for highly strenuous situations dealing with monitoring and protecting international borders, it is necessary to train border agents in an environment that simulates potential conditions. Two underground tunnels will be constructed 100 feet underground in the San Xavier Underground Mining Laboratory to be used for the training of present and future Border Patrol agents. A 3-by-5-foot tunnel was designed to simulate underground conditions in which agents could move on foot. A second tunnel, 3 feet by 2 feet, was designed to mimic underground conditions that would require agents to crawl. MineSight and Roscience RS2 were used to produce the excavation design and stability analysis, respectively. Ventilation design was created in VentSim.

Mining companies use a leaching process to extract copper minerals from waste material generated during mining. Leaching requires a leach pad, an area that can account for all the material that comes from an ore body. The pad must be large enough to contain the millions of tons that will be stacked on it, it must be safe, and it needs to be practical.Two leach pads were designed for a specified ore body. The two designs account for the ore body having two different copper prices: $2 and $2.50 per pound. The starting surface areas were 12.3 million square feet for the $2 design and 15.6 million square feet for the $2.50 design. The pads were designed with 12 different levels, each 20 feet tall. The $2 design will account for 2.1 million tons of material and the $2 design will account for 2.7 million tons of material. The designs included certain slope parameters that allowed for safety, and several ramps for accessibility and efficiency.

The Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, in conjunction with the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, hosts an annual international mine design competition for undergraduate students. An aggregate company provides data from one of its sites, and students work in teams to develop a feasible overall mine design plan. A 3D geological block model was created from the provided drill-hole data using Hexagon’s MineSight software. A life-of-mine plan was developed based on environmental and regulatory restrictions. The optimal operating schedule and equipment fleet were determined based on economic analysis and production requirements. Multiple ore processing scenarios were evaluated to ensure the ideal haulage plan. A post-closure reclamation plan was developed to donate the mining property as a recreational area to the neighboring community. The project design was submitted in 2018, and the team has been selected to present at the annual Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration conference as one of the top six international teams.

The baggage carousel at Yuma International Airport is nearing the end of its usable life. The sponsor requested two replacement alternatives be selected and analyzed. One is the best alternative for least initial cost to transition to the new system. The second is the best alternative for cost savings over the projected service life.Requirements were defined for the replacement, then multiple viable alternatives were identified. A trade study was performed to determine which alternative was the best fit. Simulations included projected annual operating costs and service life of the new system, and demonstrated different inputs and outputs, and variations as business conditions change over time. Variations considered included bags per flight, amount of arrival flights per day, and baggage weights. Simulating these different variables has shown how the system will function in different operating environments and allows the sponsor to make an educated decision on the future system before the integration phase.

The project objective is to promote research of soil salinity and crop temperature to determine proper irrigation schedules and efficiency. The system will support the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service resource data collected by NASA’s Earth Observing System, manned aircraft, and an eddy co-variance system. The team integrated a FLIR Vue Pro 336 thermal imaging sensor and a 3DR PX4 Pixhawk autopilot system into a DJI Matrice 100 unmanned aircraft to collect and georeference thermal images of agricultural fields. The system outputs a collection of georeferenced thermal images and a spreadsheet file with complete flight metadata. Georeferences are projected in the Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system for each image. The team tested the system in an experimental agricultural field where the system will be implemented.

The orbital earth camera design can control its attitude and temperature with about two rack units, or 20 by 10 by 10 centimeters, of room for a camera and optics. The camera has a self-sustaining power system (solar cells and battery), thermal control (radiator panels), an attitude control system, a communications system, and an imager to take pictures. The imager computer stores and transmits images as required. The computer uses a ground radio and star-tracking system to receive positioning and image capture commands. This design will help greatly reduce the research and development time for building future CubeSats for imaging and optics.