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- All Subjects: household energy
- Creators: Macia, Narciso
Description
The objective of this work is to develop a Stop-Rotor Multimode UAV. This UAV is capable of vertical take-off and landing like a helicopter and can convert from a helicopter mode to an airplane mode in mid-flight. Thus, this UAV can hover as a helicopter and achieve high mission range of an airplane. The stop-rotor concept implies that in mid-flight the lift generating helicopter rotor stops and rotates the blades into airplane wings. The thrust in airplane mode is then provided by a pusher propeller. The aircraft configuration presents unique challenges in flight dynamics, modeling and control. In this thesis a mathematical model along with the design and simulations of a hover control will be presented. In addition, the discussion of the performance in fixed-wing flight, and the autopilot architecture of the UAV will be presented. Also presented, are some experimental "conversion" results where the Stop-Rotor aircraft was dropped from a hot air balloon and performed a successful conversion from helicopter to airplane mode.
ContributorsVargas-Clara, Alvaro (Author) / Redkar, Sangram (Thesis advisor) / Macia, Narciso (Committee member) / Rajadas, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The prevalence of renewable generation will increase in the next several decades and offset conventional generation more and more. Yet this increase is not coming without challenges. Solar, wind, and even some water resources are intermittent and unpredictable, and thereby create scheduling challenges due to their inherent “uncontrolled” nature. To effectively manage these distributed renewable assets, new control algorithms must be developed for applications including energy management, bridge power, and system stability. This can be completed through a centralized control center though efforts are being made to parallel the control architecture with the organization of the renewable assets themselves—namely, distributed controls. Building energy management systems are being employed to control localized energy generation, storage, and use to reduce disruption on the net utility load. One such example is VOLTTRONTM, an agent-based platform for building energy control in real time. In this thesis, algorithms developed in VOLTTRON simulate a home energy management system that consists of a solar PV array, a lithium-ion battery bank, and the grid. Dispatch strategies are implemented to reduce energy charges from overall consumption ($/kWh) and demand charges ($/kW). Dispatch strategies for implementing storage devices are tuned on a month-to-month basis to provide a meaningful economic advantage under simulated scenarios to explore algorithm sensitivity to changing external factors. VOLTTRON agents provide automated real-time optimization of dispatch strategies to efficiently manage energy supply and demand, lower consumer costs associated with energy usage, and reduce load on the utility grid.
ContributorsCardwell, Joseph (Author) / Johnson, Nathan (Thesis advisor) / Rogers, Bradley (Committee member) / Macia, Narciso (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015