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Plasma Actuators:
AFRL is laying the groundwork to develop revolutionary hypersonic aerospace vehicles. Researchers are examining the feasibility of replacing traditional mechanical actuators, which move like wing flaps to control an air vehicle’s flight control surfaces, with plasma actuators that require no moving parts and are more reliable.
As part of the Boundary Layers and Hypersonics program, AFRL conducted a wind tunnel test to evaluate the feasibility of using plasma actuators for airframe flight control. In AFRL’s Mach 5 Plasma Channel wind tunnel, engineers used a strong electric field to ionize air around an air vehicle model to create plasma. The plasma-heated air successfully exerted force on the model and demonstrated that the plasma actuator concept is a viable area for further study and development. The program focuses on characterizing, predicting, and controlling high-speed fluid dynamic phenomena, including boundary layer transition; shock/boundary layer and shock/shock interactions; and other airframe propulsion integration phenomena such as real-gas effects, plasma aerodynamics, magneto-hydrodynamics, and high-speed flow heat transfer.
(Mr. R. Kimmel, AFRL/VAAA, (937) 656-7868)
Abstract:
Some imaging tasks and modalities (e.g., interferomet-ric SAR) require managing a dynamic spatio-temporal configuration of sensors (whether electro-optic or RF) over a wide area. One promising approach is to mount each sensor on a separate unpiloted vehicle, and endow the population of such vehicles with the ability to con-figure themselves and coordinate their actions to create and maintain the required sensor configuration. This paper describes some scenarios where such a capability would be useful, identifies technical issues that need to be addressed, suggests general principles and techniques that we have found useful in dealing with such scenarios, and describes a specific example that we have constructed and tested in a simulation environment.
Issues:
Coordinating multiple UAV’s for such sensing scenar-ios requires spatial and temporal coordination and the alignment of distinct roles within the team. Spatial co-ordination distributes units over the area being ob-served, and includes such tasks as determining the maximum spread between vehicles and the minimum acceptable number of revisits per unit area, assigning sectors to each unit, causing a team to converge in a specific location, or stationing UAV’s in a particular formation. Temporal coordination ensures that all UAV’s act at the right time or with the right frequency, provide their input at the right moment, and assume their designated locations and operating roles at the right time for the constellation to work as a whole. Team co-ordination seeks to optimize the assignment of individual vehicles to roles in terms of their preferences or con-straints (e.g., the configuration of individual vehicles), managing the formation, coordination, maintenance, and dispersion of groups of vehicles.
Conventional (non-autonomous) approaches require humans to fly each UAV. This approach is costly both in terms of manpower and (since all communications must go through the control center) bandwidth, and in addition can be a difficult cognitive task. Autonomous coordination among the aircraft permits the use of local nearest-neighbor communications (reducing band-width), and our experiments show that simple local algorithms can yield robust self-organization sufficient to satisfy these missions.
Originally posted by Le Colonel
Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by gazerstar
The sequence at 4:33 is stolen and the audio is dubbed. The original video has been discussed at length on ATS several times and it was shown on UFO Hunters. I think it may be a tight formation of aircraft. There is a tanker squadron based near Fremont.
[edit on 12/9/2009 by Phage]
The same person that filmed it could have removed the audio and put up the video earlier on, then released this "newer" video with audio intact.
im just saying.
on the craft:
i am not a video expert but that does not look like craft flying in formation. Im pretty sure that i see a triangle outline just outside the bright lights against the stars. I have no video software, nor am i inclined to teach myself and download software for this. maybe someone with knowledge would like to take a crack at it.
Originally posted by Exuberant1
I doubt the delta craft that shows up around 4:40 is a space fleet.
It looks like a single aircraft.
The lighting configuration is strange.
*I wonder what Plasma Actuators would look like through night-vision goggles.
Plasma Actuators:
AFRL is laying the groundwork to develop revolutionary hypersonic aerospace vehicles. Researchers are examining the feasibility of replacing traditional mechanical actuators, which move like wing flaps to control an air vehicle’s flight control surfaces, with plasma actuators that require no moving parts and are more reliable.
As part of the Boundary Layers and Hypersonics program, AFRL conducted a wind tunnel test to evaluate the feasibility of using plasma actuators for airframe flight control. In AFRL’s Mach 5 Plasma Channel wind tunnel, engineers used a strong electric field to ionize air around an air vehicle model to create plasma. The plasma-heated air successfully exerted force on the model and demonstrated that the plasma actuator concept is a viable area for further study and development. The program focuses on characterizing, predicting, and controlling high-speed fluid dynamic phenomena, including boundary layer transition; shock/boundary layer and shock/shock interactions; and other airframe propulsion integration phenomena such as real-gas effects, plasma aerodynamics, magneto-hydrodynamics, and high-speed flow heat transfer.
(Mr. R. Kimmel, AFRL/VAAA, (937) 656-7868)
More on Plasma Actuators:
www.thelivingmoon.com...
But what if it is a formation (I doubt that) - how could that be accomplished without placing the pilots in danger? Perhaps the planes don't have any pilots
Maybe what we are seeing is the swarm control and coordination technology come to fruition and being tested with UAV's...
Get doc here:
'Model-based Swarm Control of Unmanned Ground Vehicles' (but it also covers Air Vehicles...)
Lookahead Decisions Inc.
www.scs.org...
Another interesting paper on swarm control and coordination is this one:
SWARMING COORDINATION OF MULTIPLE UAV’S FOR COLLABORATIVE SENSING
www.newvectors.net...
Abstract:
Some imaging tasks and modalities (e.g., interferomet-ric SAR) require managing a dynamic spatio-temporal configuration of sensors (whether electro-optic or RF) over a wide area. One promising approach is to mount each sensor on a separate unpiloted vehicle, and endow the population of such vehicles with the ability to con-figure themselves and coordinate their actions to create and maintain the required sensor configuration. This paper describes some scenarios where such a capability would be useful, identifies technical issues that need to be addressed, suggests general principles and techniques that we have found useful in dealing with such scenarios, and describes a specific example that we have constructed and tested in a simulation environment.
Issues:
Coordinating multiple UAV’s for such sensing scenar-ios requires spatial and temporal coordination and the alignment of distinct roles within the team. Spatial co-ordination distributes units over the area being ob-served, and includes such tasks as determining the maximum spread between vehicles and the minimum acceptable number of revisits per unit area, assigning sectors to each unit, causing a team to converge in a specific location, or stationing UAV’s in a particular formation. Temporal coordination ensures that all UAV’s act at the right time or with the right frequency, provide their input at the right moment, and assume their designated locations and operating roles at the right time for the constellation to work as a whole. Team co-ordination seeks to optimize the assignment of individual vehicles to roles in terms of their preferences or con-straints (e.g., the configuration of individual vehicles), managing the formation, coordination, maintenance, and dispersion of groups of vehicles.
Conventional (non-autonomous) approaches require humans to fly each UAV. This approach is costly both in terms of manpower and (since all communications must go through the control center) bandwidth, and in addition can be a difficult cognitive task. Autonomous coordination among the aircraft permits the use of local nearest-neighbor communications (reducing band-width), and our experiments show that simple local algorithms can yield robust self-organization sufficient to satisfy these missions.
*But then there is the possibility that this delta-formation is a single aircraft with unusual lighting - but caused by what, lights? or maybe the new plasma actuators?
[edit on 10-12-2009 by Exuberant1]
Originally posted by hoghead cheeseWE HAVE FORCE FIELDS?