Drones have a new emerging use case: performing in shows and live events. This master thesis has been driven by an artistic project invited to take part in a full-scale operatic performance in the Croatian National Theatre Ivan Zajc in Rijeka, Croatia, in 2019. This project merges technological research with ancient theatrical and operatic traditions by using drones as an opera choir. After describing the process of designing and building a fleet of quadrotors equipped with speakers, we present a reacting and interacting motion planning strategy based on potential fields. We analyse and evaluate our drone design with its control strategy on simulation and on a real drone. / Droner har ett nytt framväxande användarfall: att delta i show- och liveevenemang. Detta examensarbete har drivits av ett konstnärligt projekt som inbjudits att delta i ett fullskaligt opera-uppträdande i den kroatiska nationalteatern Ivan Zajc i Rijeka, Kroatien, 2019. Detta projekt förenar teknisk forskning med gamla teatraliska och opera-traditioner genom att använda droner som en operakör. Efter att ha beskrivit processen att designa och bygga en flotta quadrotors utrustade med högtalare presenterar vi en reagerande och interaktiv rörelseplaneringsstrategi baserad på potentiella fält. Vi analyserar och utvärderar vår drone-design med sin kontrollstrategi för simulering och på en riktig drone.

This document describes the design and analysis of the Navigation, Guidance and Control System for the KnightSat project. The purpose for the project is to test and demonstrate new technologies the Air Force would be interested in for research and development. The primary mission of KnightSat is to show how a constellation of satellites can maintain relative position with each other autonomously using the Microwave Electro Thermal (MET) thruster. The secondary mission is to use multiple satellite imagery to obtain 3 dimensional stereo photographs of observable terrain. Formation flying itself has many possible uses for future applications. Selected missions that require imaging or data collection can be more economically accomplished using smaller multiple satellites. The MET thruster is a very efficient, but low thrust alternative that can provide thrust for a very long time, hence provide the low thrust necessary to maintain the satellites at a constant separation. The challenge is to design a working control algorithm to provide the desired output data to be used to command the MET thrusters. The satellites are to maintain a constant relative distance from each other, and use the least amount of fuel possible. If one satellite runs out of fuel before the other, it would render the constellation less useful or useless. Hence, the satellites must use the same amount of fuel in order to maintain an optimal operational duration on orbit.

Människor flyger allt mer vilket har en negativ påverkan på vår planet. Universitetet KTH:s utsläpp består till stor del av flygresor. Forskningsprojektet FLIGHT på KTH fokuserar på att reducera flygintensiva organisationers utsläpp. I samarbete med studenter togs verktyget FlightViz fram som ett hjälpmedel för att kunna visualisera KTH:s flygdata. Ett intresse för att visualisera flygdata uppmärksammades även hos andra organisationer. Syftet med studien är att förstå hur verktyget FlightViz kan modifieras för att kunna implementeras på organisationer utanför KTH. Studien utfördes i form av intervjuer av anställda som arbetar på de två deltagande organisationerna. I samband med intervjuerna presenterades verktyget FlightViz och intervjupersonerna fick svara och reflektera på öppna frågor. Studiens resultat visar att det finns behov för ytterligare funktioner i verktyget. En del av de önskade funktionerna var specifika för de enskilda organisationerna medan resterande var gemensamma för de båda deltagande organisationerna.  Två framkomna funktioner valdes ut som ledande i anpassningen av verktyget, jämförelse av data från olika tidsperioder och klassificering av resor. Dessa funktioner var gemensamma önskemål från de två deltagande organisationerna. De bedömdes vara vara av störst relevans för att kunna implementera FlightViz på dessa externa organisationer. / People are steadily increasing their frequency of flying which has a negative impact on our planet. KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, has a major part of its emissions produced through aviation. The research project FLIGHT at KTH aims to reduce emissions produced by flight intensive organisations . In a joint effort with students at KTH a tool named FlightViz was developed as an aid to visualize KTH’s flight data. An interest in visualizing flight data was also noted at external organizations. The objective of this study is to get an understanding of how FlightViz can be adapted in order for it to be implemented in these external organizations.The study was executed as a series of interviews with employees of the two participating organizations. In conjunction with said interviews a demonstration of FlightViz was held and the interviewees were subjected to open-ended questions and asked to reflect on them. The results of the study showed that there is a need for additional features for the tool. Some of the mentioned features were specific to the participating organizations while others were of interest to both  organizations. Two key factors in the future adaptation of the tool are the ability to compare data from different time periods and to categorize trips. The two participating organizations had these features in common. Therefore they were determined to be of the highest relevance to be able to implement FlightViz at these external organizations.

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The primary objective of this thesis is to evaluate the prospect of machine learning methods being used to classify flying qualities based on simulator data (with the focus being on pitch maneuvers). If critical flying qualities could be identified earlier in the verification process, they can be further invested in and focused on with less cost for design changes of the flight control system. Information from manned simulations with given flying quality levels are used to create a replication of the performed pitch maneuver in a desktop simulator. The generated flight data is represented by different measures in the classification to separately train and test the machine learning models against the given flying quality level. The models used are Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines with radial basis functions (RBF), linear and polynomial kernels along with Artificial Neural Networks.  The results show that the classifiers correctly identify at least 80% of cases with critical flying qualities. The classification shows that the statistical measures of the time signals and first order time derivatives of pitch, roll and yaw rates are enough for classification within the scope of this thesis. The different machine learning models show no significant difference in performance in the scope of this thesis. In conclusion, machine learning methods show good potential for classification of flying qualities, and could become an important tool for evaluating flying qualities of large amounts of simulations, in addition to manned simulations. / Huvuduppgiften med detta examensarbete är att utvärdera huruvida maskininlärning kan användas för att klassificera flygkvaliteter från simulatordata (där fokus ligger på att utvärdera tippmanövrar). Om kritiska flygkvaliteter kan identifieras tidigare i verifikationsprocessen, kan resurser fokuseras för att åtgärda problemet tidigt med mindre kostnader för ändringar av styrsystemet. Information från bemannade simuleringar där flygkvalitetsnivåer har angetts av pilot används för att återskapa tippmanövern i skrivbordssimulatorn. Den genererade flygdatan representeras av olika mått i klassificeringen för att separat träna och testa maskininlärningsmodellerna mot den givna flygkvalitetsnivån. De modeller som används i rapporten är logistisk regression, stödvektormaskiner med radiella basfunktioner (RBF), linjär och polynomisk kärna samt artificiella neurala nätverk. Resultaten visar att klassificerarna korrekt identifierar över 80% av fallen med kritiska flygkvaliteter. Klassificeringen visar att statistiska mått av tidssignalen och första ordningens tidsderivator i tipp, roll och gir är tillräckligt för klassificering inom gränserna av detta examensarbete. De olika maskininlärningsmodellerna visar inga signifikanta skillnader i prestanda med datan som används. Sammanfattningsvis kan maskininlärningsmodellerna anses ha god potential för klassificering av flygkvaliteter, och kan vara ett viktigt verktyg för att klassificera flygkvaliteter för stora mängder flygdata, som komplement till bemannade simuleringar.

A spacecraft formation possesses several benefits over a single-satellite mission. However, launching a fleet of satellites is a high-cost, high-risk venture. One way to mitigate much of this risk is to demonstrate hardware and algorithm performance in groundbased testbeds. It is typically difficult to experimentally replicate satellite dynamics in an Earth-bound laboratory because of the influences of gravity and friction. An air bearing provides a very low-torque environment for experimentation, thereby recapturing the freedom of the space environment as effectively as possible. Depending upon con- figuration, air-bearing systems provide some combination of translational and rotational freedom; the three degrees of rotational freedom provided by a spherical air bearing are ideal for investigation of spacecraft attitude dynamics and control problems. An interest in experimental demonstration of formation flying led directly to the development of the Distributed Spacecraft Attitude Control System Simulator (DSACSS). The DSACSS is a unique facility, as it uses two air-bearing platforms working in concert. Thus DSACSS provides a pair of "spacecraft" three degrees of attitude freedom each. Through use of the DSACSS we are able to replicate the relative attitude dynamics between nodes of a formation such as might be required for co-observation of a terrestrial target. Many dissertations present a new mathematical technique or prove a new theory. This dissertation presents the design and development of a new experimental system. Although the DSACSS is not yet fully operational, a great deal of work has gone into its development thus far. This work has ranged from configuration design to nonlinear analysis to structural and electrical manufacturing. In this dissertation we focus on the development of the attitude determination subsystem. This work includes development of the equations of motion and analysis of the sensor suite dynamics. We develop nonlinear filtering techniques for data fusion and attitude estimation, and extend this problem to include estimation of the mass properties of the system. We include recommendations for system modifications and improvements. / Ph. D.

This dissertation presents voltage stabilization techniques for flying capacitors used in soft-switching multilevel active power filters. The proposed active filter has proved to be a solution for power system harmonics produced by static high power converters. However, voltage unbalance of the clamping capacitors in the active filter in practical applications was observed due to its unequal parameters. Thus, the fundamentals of flying capacitors were characterized dealing with voltage balancing between flying capacitors and dc capacitors under practical operation, rather than ideal conditions. The study of voltage balancing provides the fundamental high-level solutions to flying capacitor based multilevel converter and inverter applications without additional passive balancing circuits. The use of proposed voltage balancing techniques made it possible to have a simple structure for solving the problems associated with the conventional bulky passive resistors and capacitor banks. Furthermore, the proposed control algorithms can be implemented with a real time digital signal processor. It can achieve the high performance of the active filter by compensating an adaptive gain to the controller. The effectiveness of the proposed controller was confirmed through various simulations and experiments. The focus of this study is to identify and develop voltage stabilization techniques for flying capacitors used in a proposed active filter. The voltage unbalance is investigated and characterized to provide safe operations. After having defined the problems associated with the voltage unbalance, the most important voltage stabilization techniques are proposed to solve this problem, in conjunction with an instantaneous reactive power (IRP) control of an active filter. In order to reduce the switching losses and improve the efficiency of the active filter, the proposed soft-switching techniques were evaluated through simulation and experimentation. Experimental results indicate that the proposed active filter achieved zero-voltage conditions in all of the main switches and zero-current turn-off conditions to the auxiliary switches during commutation processes. Also, various studies on soft-switching techniques, multilevel inverters, control issues and dynamics of the proposed active filter are discussed and analyzed in depth. / Ph. D.

Spacecraft formation flying (SFF) offers robust observations of multi-scale ionospheric space weather. A number of hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) SFF simulation testbeds based on Global-Navigation-Satellite-Systems (GNSS) have been developed to support GNSS-based SFF mission design, however, none of these testbeds has been directly applied to ionospheric space weather studies. The Virginia Tech Formation Flying Testbed (VTFFTB), a GNSS-based HIL simulation testbed, has been developed in this work to simulate closed-loop real-time low Earth orbit (LEO) SFF scenarios. The final VTFFTB infrastructure consists of three GNSS hardware signal simulators, three multi-constellation multi-band GNSS receivers, three navigation and control systems, an STK visualization system, and an ionospheric remote sensing system. A fleet of LEO satellites, each carrying a spaceborne GNSS receiver for navigation and ionospheric measurements, is simulated in scenarios with ionospheric impacts on the GPS and Galileo constellations. Space-based total electron density (TEC) and GNSS scintillation index S4 are measured by the LEO GNSS receivers in simulated scenarios. Four stages of work were accomplished to (i) build the VTFFTB with a global ionospheric modeling capability, and (ii) apply the VTFFTB to incubate future ionospheric measurement techniques. In stage 1, a differential-TEC method was developed to use space-based TEC measurements from a pair of LEO satellites to determine localized electron density (Ne). In stage 2, the GPS-based VTFFTB was extended to a multi-constellation version by adding the Galileo. Compared to using the GPS constellation only, using both GPS and Galileo constellations can improve ionospheric measurement quality (accuracy, precision, and availability) and relative navigation performance. Sensitivity studies found that Ne retrieval characteristics are correlated with LEO formation orbit, the particular GNSS receivers and constellation being used, as well as GNSS carrier-to-noise density C/N0. In stage 3, the VTFFTB for dual-satellite scenarios was further extended into a 3-satellite version, and then implemented to develop a polar orbit scenario with more fuel-efficient natural motion. In stage 4, a global 4-dimensioanl ionospheric model (TIE-CGM) was incorporated into the VTFFTB to significantly improve the modelling fidelity of multi-scale ionospheric space weather. Equatorial and polar space weather structures (e.g. plasma bubbles, tongues-of-ionization) were successfully simulated in 4-dimensional ionospheric scenarios on the enhanced VTFFTB. The dissertation has demonstrated the VTFFTB is a versatile GNSS-based SFF mission incubator to study ionospheric space weather impacts and develop next-generation multi-scale ionospheric observation missions. / Doctor of Philosophy / Spacecraft formation flying (SFF) is a space mission architecture with a group of spacecraft flying together and working as a team. SFF provides new opportunities for robust, flexible and low-cost observations of various phenomena in the ionized layer of Earth's atmosphere (called the ionosphere). Several hardware SFF simulation platforms based on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have been established to develop GNSS-based SFF missions, however, none of these platforms has ever directly used on-board GNSS receivers to study the impact of space weather on ionospheric density structures. The Virginia Tech Formation Flying Testbed (VTFFTB), a hardware simulation infrastructure using multiple GNSS signals, has been built in this work to emulate realistic SFF scenarios in low altitude orbits. The overall VTFFTB facility comprises three GNSS hardware signal emulators, three GNSS signal receivers, three navigation and control components, a software visualization component, and an ionospheric measurement component. Both Global-Positioning-System (GPS) and Galileo (the European version GNSS) are implemented in the VTFFTB. The objectives of this work are to (i) develop the VTFFTB with a high-fidelity ionospheric modeling capability, and (ii) apply the VTFFTB to incubate future ionospheric measurement techniques with GNSS receivers in space. A fleet of two or three spacecraft, each having a GNSS receiver to navigate and sense the ionosphere is emulated in several space environments. The electron concentration of the ionosphere and the GNSS signal fluctuation are measured by the GNSS receivers from space in simulated scenarios. These measurements are advantageous to study the location, size and structure of irregular ionospheric phenomena nearby the trajectory of spacecraft fleet. The culmination of this study is incorporation of an external global ionospheric model with temporal variations into the VTFFTB infrastructure to model a variety of realistic ionospheric structures and space weather impacts. Equatorial and polar space weather phenomenon were successfully simulated on the VTFFTB to verify a newly developed space-borne electron density measurement technique in the 3-dimensional ionosphere. Overall, it was successfully demonstrated that the VTFFTB is a versatile GNSS-based SFF mission incubator to study multiple kinds of ionospheric space weather impacts and develop next-generation space missions for ionospheric measurements.

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is significantly advantageous to absolute and relative navigation for spacecraft formation flying. Ionospheric remote sensing, such as Total Electron Content (TEC) measurements or ionospheric irregularity studies are important potential Low Earth Orbit (LEO) applications. A GNSS-based Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation testbed for LEO spacecraft formation flying has been developed and evaluated. The testbed infrastructure is composed of GNSS simulators, multi-constellation GNSS receiver(s), the Navigation & Control system and the Systems Tool Kit (STK) visualization system. A reference scenario of two LEO spacecraft is simulated with the initial in-track separation of 1000-m and targeted leader-follower configuration of 100-m along-track offset. Therefore, the feasibility and performance of the testbed have been demonstrated by benchmarking the simulation results with past work. For ionospheric remote sensing, multi-constellation multi-frequency GNSS receivers are used to develop the GNSS TEC measurement and model evaluation system. GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou constellations are considered in this work. Multi-constellation GNSS TEC measurements and the GNSS-based HIL simulation testbed were integrated and applied to design a LEO satellite formation flying mission for ionospheric remote sensing. A scenario of observing sporadic E is illustrated and adopted to demonstrate how to apply GNSS-based spacecraft formation flying to study the ionospheric irregularities using the HIL simulation testbed. The entire infrastructure of GNSS-based spacecraft formation flying simulation and ionospheric remote sensing developed at Virginia Tech is capable of supporting future ionospheric remote sensing mission design and validation. / Master of Science

The Coulomb propulsion system has no exhaust plume impingement problem with neighboring spacecraft and does not contaminate their sensors because it requires essentially no propellant. It is suitable to close formation control on the order of dozens of meters. The Coulomb forces are internal forces of the formation and they influence all charged spacecraft at the same time. Highly nonlinear and strongly coupled equations of motion of Coulomb formation makes creating a Coulomb control method a challenging task. Instead of positioning all spacecraft, this study investigates having a sensor craft be sequentially controlled using dedicated drone craft. At least three drone craft are required to control a general sensor craft position in the inertial space. However, the singularity of a drone plane occurs when a sensor craft moves across the drone plane. A bang-bang control method with a singularity check can avoid this problem but may lose formation control as the relative distances grow bounded. A bang-coast-bang control method utilizing a reference trajectory profile and drone rest control is introduced to increase the control effectiveness. The spacecraft are assumed to be floating freely in inertial space, an approximation of environments found while underway to other solar system bodies. Numerical simulation results show the feasibility of sensor craft control using Coulomb forces. / Master of Science