The Battle of Cannae in 216 BC was one of the worst defeats in Roman history. The Roman army, consisting of around 80,000 soldiers, faced Hannibal's army of around 50,000 which used an innovative pincer movement tactic. This resulted in the Romans being surrounded from all sides, suffering massive casualties estimated between 50,000-70,000 men killed or captured, while Hannibal's army lost only about 6,000.
Tesi Adriano Arcadipane: controllo attivo di un missileAdriano_A
This work is a summary of my master's degree thesis in aerospace engineering from Università degli Studi di Palermo (Italy).
Rockets spin about their longitudinal axis due to imperfect alignments in construction. This behavior could be a problem for telemetric systems or when guidance control on the other two axes are used.
In my thesis I designed, made and tested an automatic control system to negate the angular roll speed of a model rocket.
The system uses two control fins (aerodynamic control) moved by a flight computer equipped with a 3DOF gyroscope, an accelerometer and an atmospheric pressure sensor. I entirely scratch built this flight computer: designing the electronics, creating custom printed circuit boards and programming in C language. The code contain also two digital Kalman filters which compute an optimal estimation of the state-space from sensor data.
To design the digital controller and to predict the dynamic behavior of the entire rocket I implemented in Matlab / Simulink a 6 degree of freedom mathematical model. All aerodynamic parameters where estimated with real test flight data or with McDonnell Douglas Digital DATCOM Fortran code (a program which uses semi-empirical methods).
I also designed and built the solid rocket motor from a commercial combustion chamber, machinging a custom exhaust nozzle.
Dr. Bilal Siddiqui of DHA Suffa University conducted a two day workshop on softwares used extensively in aerospace industry. The first session was organized by ASME's student chapter at DSU on Friday, the 2nd of December, 2016, which covered USAF Stability and Control DATCOM software used for aerodynamic prediction and aircraft design. Students and faculty from DSU as well as those from Pakistan Airforce Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology (PAF KIET) attended the session. The second session was held on Tuesday, 6th of December at PAF KIET's Korangi Creek campus and focused on interfacing DATCOM with Matlab and Simulink softwares for aircraft simulator design. Students were given hands on training on the softwares. It is worth noting that Dr. Bilal also delivered a lecture titled "It isn't exactly Rocket Science: The artsy science of rocket propulsion" at PAF KIET on the 6th October, as part of an effort to popularize rocket science among academia and changing the scientific culture in Pakistan.
This is a self-contained three-day short course on the fundamentals of tactical missile design. It provides a system-level, integrated method for missile aerodynamic configuration/propulsion design and analysis and addresses the broad range of alternatives in meeting cost and performance requirements. The methods presented are generally simple closed-form analytical expressions that are physics-based, to provide insight into the primary driving parameters. Configuration sizing examples are presented for rocket-powered, ramjet-powered, and turbojet-powered baseline missiles. Typical values of missile parameters and the characteristics of current operational missiles are discussed, as well as the enabling subsystems and technologies for tactical missiles, the development process, and the current/projected state-of-the-art. The attendees will vote on the relative emphasis of the topics. Over thirty videos illustrate missile development activities and missile performance. Finally, each attendee may design, build, and fly an air-powered rocket that illustrates some of the course design methods.
Tesi Adriano Arcadipane: controllo attivo di un missileAdriano_A
This work is a summary of my master's degree thesis in aerospace engineering from Università degli Studi di Palermo (Italy).
Rockets spin about their longitudinal axis due to imperfect alignments in construction. This behavior could be a problem for telemetric systems or when guidance control on the other two axes are used.
In my thesis I designed, made and tested an automatic control system to negate the angular roll speed of a model rocket.
The system uses two control fins (aerodynamic control) moved by a flight computer equipped with a 3DOF gyroscope, an accelerometer and an atmospheric pressure sensor. I entirely scratch built this flight computer: designing the electronics, creating custom printed circuit boards and programming in C language. The code contain also two digital Kalman filters which compute an optimal estimation of the state-space from sensor data.
To design the digital controller and to predict the dynamic behavior of the entire rocket I implemented in Matlab / Simulink a 6 degree of freedom mathematical model. All aerodynamic parameters where estimated with real test flight data or with McDonnell Douglas Digital DATCOM Fortran code (a program which uses semi-empirical methods).
I also designed and built the solid rocket motor from a commercial combustion chamber, machinging a custom exhaust nozzle.
Dr. Bilal Siddiqui of DHA Suffa University conducted a two day workshop on softwares used extensively in aerospace industry. The first session was organized by ASME's student chapter at DSU on Friday, the 2nd of December, 2016, which covered USAF Stability and Control DATCOM software used for aerodynamic prediction and aircraft design. Students and faculty from DSU as well as those from Pakistan Airforce Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology (PAF KIET) attended the session. The second session was held on Tuesday, 6th of December at PAF KIET's Korangi Creek campus and focused on interfacing DATCOM with Matlab and Simulink softwares for aircraft simulator design. Students were given hands on training on the softwares. It is worth noting that Dr. Bilal also delivered a lecture titled "It isn't exactly Rocket Science: The artsy science of rocket propulsion" at PAF KIET on the 6th October, as part of an effort to popularize rocket science among academia and changing the scientific culture in Pakistan.
This is a self-contained three-day short course on the fundamentals of tactical missile design. It provides a system-level, integrated method for missile aerodynamic configuration/propulsion design and analysis and addresses the broad range of alternatives in meeting cost and performance requirements. The methods presented are generally simple closed-form analytical expressions that are physics-based, to provide insight into the primary driving parameters. Configuration sizing examples are presented for rocket-powered, ramjet-powered, and turbojet-powered baseline missiles. Typical values of missile parameters and the characteristics of current operational missiles are discussed, as well as the enabling subsystems and technologies for tactical missiles, the development process, and the current/projected state-of-the-art. The attendees will vote on the relative emphasis of the topics. Over thirty videos illustrate missile development activities and missile performance. Finally, each attendee may design, build, and fly an air-powered rocket that illustrates some of the course design methods.
