Replacing desiccant cartridges is costly and time-consuming and desiccant breathers tend to be discarded after a single use when the desiccant is saturated with moisture. The goal of this project is to design a self-regenerating desiccant breather that eliminates the need to replace desiccant cartridges. The Infinity Breather is a small device that can self-regenerate while maintaining an air volume of 1 cubic foot with a dew-point temperature of -20 degrees Celsius.

The goal of this project is to design and fabricate a large-scale prototype 3-D printer capable of printing parts as large as 50 by 50 by 25 inches and of reaching and maintaining temperatures required to print high-grade thermoplastics such as Ultem. The design focused on system robustness and longevity and on the safety of the operator and bystanders. The system was built mostly using off-the-shelf components with provisions for an insulating enclosure for high-temperature printing. The extrusion system was designed to use any filament on the market, and the bed can support a print job of over 350 pounds. Nozzles of various sizes allow the user to adjust for different part sizes, accuracy, and printing speed. The prototype includes a software interface for customizing and estimating print times and materials needed.

Drones used in intelligence gathering and espionage are a threat to military personnel and national security, which creates a demand for a device that can disable drones without risk to life. Built specifically for the Navy, the Anti-Drone Device is designed to detect and disable drones autonomously. It consists of a microcomputer, LCD screen, Wi-Fi antenna and protective case designed to withstand the elements, such as rain, wind and humidity. Once a drone is detected, the device automatically connects to the Wi-Fi access point of the drone and sends commands via Telnet to shut it down.

Medical devices can be difficult to identify once implanted inside the human body. Adding a small unique device identifier, or UDI, allows medical staff to correctly identify the device after implantation and ensure its proper use. Information stored in the UDI can include device description, model number, catheter type, and compatibility with diagnostic devices, such as MRI. The team developed an implantable UDI and a detection system that uses mobile phone technology. This allows UDI information to be scanned from outside of the body, creating a safe and cost-effective alternative to current techniques. Information is stored on an induction-powered radio-frequency identification tag positioned on the implanted device. Medical personnel read the tag using an external device that connects via Bluetooth to a mobile phone. The external device can be programmed using a mobile application running the Android operating system.

An optimized mining production fleet improves the safety, efficiency, and profitability of a mining operation. This project determines the feasibility of a Peruvian copper mine using larger trucks to cope with a rapid increase in production during the next 30 years. The infrastructure on the site, the crusher in particular, is already equipped to process a larger throughput of material. Most of the trucks in the operation’s current fleet have a nominal payload of 218 metric tons, which could increase to 327 or 363 metric tons with new trucks from various manufacturers. Ascertaining the most profitable course of action for this mine site involved assessing existing and replacement trucks for capital, operating, overhaul, maintenance, and rebuild costs, and manipulating the data in spreadsheets to determine how many new trucks would be needed and how many would need to be rebuilt during the next 30 years.

The objective of this project is to design, manufacture, and test an unmanned aircraft system capable of vertical takeoff and landing for wildlife surveillance. Red Cactus is a blended-body flying wing with vertical-thrusting ducted propellers and a horizontal-thrusting pusher propeller that enable vertical, horizontal, and hover flight modes. This hybrid design allows the aircraft to take off from a stationary ground position, cruise four miles to a desired target, loiter over the target for 15 minutes, and cruise back to the original location to land. Hybrid aircraft combine elements of fixed-wing aircraft with elements of multirotor aircraft to deliver multifaceted mission capabilities. The aircraft has no tail so its wing is constructed with an Eppler 330 reflex airfoil to provide stability during cruise. The aircraft cruises at 36 mph at of 500 feet above ground level, using elevons (ailerons combined with an elevator) on each wing as control surfaces. The aircraft weighs 12 pounds and is fabricated from various weights of vacuum-formed composite fiberglass for the outer skin, carbon fiber tubing, plastic parts made using a 3-D printer, and balsa wood ribs for the internal structure. The internal structure consists of a network of spars joined to a large, stiff duct located in the center of the blended body, which houses two 15-inch counter-rotating lifting propellers.

When at rest on the water, the Clipper Spirit seaplane has one wing buoyed and the other suspended in air, which requires additional roll authority to stabilize the aircraft during takeoff and landing. The project goal is to design a mechanism that droops or retracts the ailerons during takeoff and landing, creating more lift at the wing tips, where the ailerons are located, which effectively adds roll authority. The droop mechanism must be purely mechanical, be independent from and not interfere with the aileron control system, retract or extend the bias linearly from 75 to 100 knots, and be free from pilot input. The design meets this requirement by using dynamic pressure to displace a piston. The piston linearly displaces a rack that turns a set of gears, the last of which is mounted on the aileron control shaft. When the gear rotates it will also rotate the shaft, which will effectively lengthen or shorten the control shaft depending on whether the ailerons are being drooped or retracted. Rotation changes shaft length by threading it into or out of the control horn, which translates into a droop or retraction of the aileron.

The team’s objective is to build two radio-controlled electric-powered aircraft in accordance with the rules of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Design/Build/Fly competition. The production aircraft must be able to carry a 32-ounce soft drink bottle internally and complete a timed flight mission. It must be able to be disassembled and loaded into a manufacturing support aircraft, which also has to complete the flight mission. The team’s objectives are to build the lightest possible planes and to minimize the subassemblies of the production aircraft. The team opted for two subassemblies and designed an aircraft with a minimized front profile that enabled optimization of size and weight. Manufacturing techniques include foam core composite prototyping, 3-D printing, carbon fiber wing layups, and precision, laser-cut wood structures. Using these techniques in tandem with mission-specific designs resulted in two aircraft capable of achieving a maximum score under competition rules.

The goal of this project is to design, construct and fly an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, by computer control using a feedback-based program. Feedback loops take the system output into consideration, which enables the system to adjust its performance to meet a desired output response. For aircraft, a human pilot traditionally does this. For a UAV, the controller receives a signal and compares it to the desired signal value, then sends a corrected signal based on this comparison. This process repeats rapidly throughout the mission. In this design, the feedback-control system sends thrust and angle values to the flight controller, analyzes the reaction, and then sends corrected values. The control program can be uploaded to the aircraft for a mission instead of using a human pilot. The small, durable UAV is designed for indoor flight to enhance a control theory class by adding hands-on experience. The communication ground station can toggle between manual and computer control. The scope of this project is to demonstrate system communication, simple computer-controlled commands, and aircraft flight performance.

This project seeks to continue the development of a one-third aeroelastically scaled model of the X-56A, an unmanned aerial vehicle designed by Lockheed Martin. The X-56A Multi-Utility Technology Test bed is used by the Air Force Research Laboratory to research flutter suppression on flexible wings. The team’s design maintains the modularity of the full-scale X-56A, allowing for wing sets of varying stiffness to be combined with a single fuselage and radio control system. Straight-wing planforms and empennage were designed and integrated for increased stability during flight research. The use of room-temperature composite manufacturing techniques allowed the flexural properties of each wing set to be tailored to dynamically and elastically match the low- and high-stiffness wings of the full-size X-56A. Using fiber-reinforced composites allowed exact surfaces to be replicated across iterations of wing sets and parts to be easily reproduced. Ultimately, the team’s design will be used by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to investigate fluid-structure interaction and novel fluid dynamics models.