ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / XX launch vehicle has been flying onboard video system which includes video cameras, data compression devices and channel switch device for the second Chinese spaceflight. The camera is a PAL analog camera that been sampled and compressed by compression device. The compressed digital video data is combined with telemetry data into the telemetry radio channel. Lighting is provided by sunlight, or a light has been equipped when sunlight is unavailable. IRIG-B timing is used to correlate the video with other vehicle telemetry. The video system’s influences to the vehicle flight have been decreased to minimum.

ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / For several decades, the military has used the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) with a series of iR sensors along a belt fastened to a vehicle for training and simulation. Now, an alternative to this legacy system, a solar rechargeable battery powered wireless IR sensor is replacing wired sensors. The use of short-range RF communications network, allows the MILES sensors strategic placement about a combat vehicle without the umbilical cabling normally required for power and signal coupling from the players processing unit. The RF network operates in the 340 to 380 MHz band, has channeling capability of over 1600 channels, and coexists with the vehicles on board high-powered radios without interference. The wireless sensor implements a custom designed IR sensing amplifier, designed for maximum sensitivity and minimal power dissipation, along with advanced semiconductor IC’s for signal processing and power conversion. Solar recharging enables the sensor to operate for extended time, on a single battery that should last for years without replacement. A proprietary software protocol, developed for communication integrity, is a critical part of the overall system and supports other sensor types and control elements with low data rates for a wireless Vehicle Area Network. The system, successfully installed on several military training platforms, proves to be a viable product for military training and simulation systems for the 21st century.

ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is developing a new launch vehicle to replace the Space Shuttle. The Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) will be a combination of new design hardware and heritage Apollo and Space Shuttle hardware. The current CLV configuration is a 5 segment solid rocket booster First Stage and a new Upper Stage design with a modified Apollo era J-2 engine. The current schedule has an Ascent Development Test Flight (ADFT-0) with a First Stage and a dummy structurally identical, but without engine, Upper Stage. The ADFT-0 test results will determine if there will be multiple ADFT flights. There will be a minimum of two test flights with a full complement of flight hardware. After the completion of the test flights, the first manned flight to the International Space Station is scheduled for late 2014. To verify the CLV’s design margins a developmental flight instrumentation (DFI) system is needed. The DFI system will collect environmental and health data from the various CLV subsystems’ and either transmit it to the ground or store it onboard for later evaluation on the ground. The CLV consists of 4 major elements: the First Stage, the Upper Stage, the Upper Stage Engine and the integration of these elements together. It is anticipated that each of CLV’s elements will have some version of DFI. This paper will discuss a conceptual DFI design for each element and also of an integrated CLV DFI system.

We present a hybrid optimization algorithm for mixed-integer linear programming, embedding both heuristic and exact components. In order to validate it we use the periodic vehicle routing problem (PVRP) as a case study. This problem consists of determining a set of minimum cost routes for each day of a given planning horizon, with the constraints that each customer must be visited a required number of times (chosen among a set of valid day combinations), must receive every time the required quantity of product, and that the number of routes per day (each respecting the capacity of the vehicle) does not exceed the total number of available vehicles. This is a generalization of the well-known vehicle routing problem (VRP). Our algorithm is based on the linear programming (LP) relaxation of a set-covering-like integer linear programming formulation of the problem, with additional constraints. The LP-relaxation is solved by column generation, where columns are generated heuristically by an iterated local search algorithm. The whole solution method takes advantage of the LP-solution and applies techniques of fixing and releasing of the columns as a local search, making use of a tabu list to avoid cycling. We show the results of the proposed algorithm on benchmark instances from the literature and compare them to the state-of-the-art algorithms, showing the effectiveness of our approach in producing good quality solutions. In addition, we report the results on realistic instances of the PVRP introduced in Pacheco et al. (2011) [24] and on benchmark instances of the periodic traveling salesman problem (PTSP), showing the efficacy of the proposed algorithm on these as well. Finally, we report the new best known solutions found for all the tested problems. (authors' abstract)

For adaptive motion control of an autonomous vehicle, operating in a generally structured environment, position and velocity feedback are required to ascertain the vehicle location relative to a reference. Whilst the literature offers techniques for guiding vehicles along external references, autonomous vehicles should be able to navigate between despatch locations without the need to rely on external guidance systems. Considerations of the vehicle stability and manoeuvrability favour a vehicle design with four independently steered wheels. A new motion control methodology has been proposed which utilises the geometric relationship of the angular displacements and the rotations of the wheels to estimate the longitudinal and lateral motions of the vehicle. The motion controller consists of three building blocks: the motion control system comprising the position tracking and the motion command generation; the electronic system comprising a data acquisition system and proprietary power electronics; the mechanical system which includes an undercarriage enabling permanent contact of the wheels with the floor. The components have been designed not only to perform optimally in their specific functions but also to ensure full compatibility within the integrated system. For reliable deduction of the wheel rotations with a high degree of accuracy a dedicated data acquisition interface has been developed, which enables data to be captured in parallel from four optical encoders mounted directly on the wheel axles. Parallel sampling of the angular wheel position and parallel actuation of all steering motors improves the accuracy of the system state and gives a higher degree of certainty. Considering only circular motion of the vehicle, a method for calculating the steering angles and wheel speeds based on the complex notation is presented. By cumulating the displacement vectors of the vehicle motion and the location of the centre of rotation between consecutive samples of the controller, the path of the vehicle is estimated. The difference between the nominal and the deduced centre of rotation is determined to minimise deviations from the reference trajectory and to allow the controller to adapt to changes in the road/tyre interface characteristics. The individual mechanical and electronic components have been assembled and tested. Additionally, the performance of the electronic interface has been evaluated on a purpose built test-bed. For the experimental validation of the methodology, a simple method of mapping the centre of curvature with a pen mounted at the nominal centre of rotation has been proposed. Experiments have been conducted with both the steering angles fixed to their theoretical values for the nominal centre of rotation and with the proportional steering controller enabled. The results from the latter method have shown a significantly reduced deviation from the nominal centre of rotation. The data captured of the angular wheel positions and steering angle settings has been analysed off-line. Good agreement is obtained between the deduced and the actual centres of rotation for the measurements averaged over 1.5 seconds. A number of different centres of rotation have been investigated and the required steering angles to compensate for the deviation have been plotted to form a control surface for the motion controller. The deviation between the estimated and the actual centre of curvature was less than 1.6% and adequate results could be obtained with the proportional steering controller.

The thesis introduces the user to programming in Simscape language. A permanent magnet synchronous machine torque control drive system for hybrid electric vehicles has been analyzed, programmed, using Simscape language, and tested in this thesis. The thesis walks the reader through the process of creating custom components in Simscape language explaining details and syntax of the language at every step. Important excerpts of code for all the components designed, created and used in the process are explained in the thesis and the complete code for the same is provided in the Appendix. ix

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / There is an increasing demand for practical and powerful navigation system to lead people from one place to another quickly and rightly. The introduction of a new embedded operating system, Windows CE, allows us to design a compact, low-cost, efficient autonomous vehicle location and navigation system. This paper discusses the advantages of Windows CE, demonstrates the possibility of building an AVLNS based on it. Then a realization scheme of hardware platform and navigation software is presented.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Collecting and analyzing vehicle performance data is an essential part of the launch process. Performance data is used to determine mission success. Performance data also provides essential feedback to the launch vehicle design engineers. This feedback can be used to improve the overall vehicle design and thereby improve the probability of a successful launch. Various Telemetry products are used to gather and process critical information on board launch vehicles. Data is transmitted by RF links to fixed or mobile receiving stations. These Telemetry products are ruggedized for the extreme launch environments. This paper discusses the use of video telemetry as a means of providing launch vehicle performance data.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Launch Vehicle tracking is indispensable due to the fact that wayward vehicles must be destroyed lest they cause loss of life and/or damage to property. Launch Vehicle tracking data is also useful in assessing vehicle performance and mission success. Cincinnati Electronics (CE) has developed a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) Receiver/Transmitter Unit (RTU), specifically for use with launch vehicles. The CE GPS RTU was flown as an experiment on the Missile Technology Demonstration (MTD) flight at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). This paper provides an overview of CE’s GPS RTU and provides the results of CE’s GPS RTU MTD-3 flight performance.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 21, 2002 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / The Vehicle Monitoring System based on GPRS is a system using GPRS network to transmit data, including location data, time data and so on .It has many advantages compared with those systems based on other communication modes. The key of the system lies in how to build up the connection with exterior data network. In this paper, the constitution of the system is introduced, and the course of building up connection with exterior data network is described in detail.