Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are considered the stepping stone for the integration of civil unmanned vehicles in the National Airspace System (NAS) because of their low cost and risk. Such systems are aimed at a variety of applications including search and rescue, surveillance, communications, traffic monitoring and inspection of buildings, power lines and bridges. Amidst these systems, small helicopters play an important role because of their capability to hold a position, to maneuver in tight spaces and to take off and land from virtually anywhere. Nevertheless civil adoption of such systems is minimal, mostly because of regulatory problems that in turn are due to safety concerns. This dissertation examines the risk to safety imposed by UAS in general and small helicopters in particular, focusing on accidents resulting in a ground impact. To improve the performance of small helicopters in this area, the use of autonomous autorotation is proposed. This research goes beyond previous work in the area of autonomous autorotation by developing an on-line, model-based, real-time controller that is capable of handling constraints and different cost functions. The approach selected is based on a non-linear model-predictive controller, that is augmented by a neural network to improve the speed of the non-linear optimization. The immediate benefit of this controller is that a class of failures that would otherwise result in an uncontrolled crash and possible injuries or fatalities can now be accommodated. Furthermore besides simply landing the helicopter, the controller is also capable of minimizing the risk of serious injury to people in the area. This is accomplished by minimizing the kinetic energy during the last phase of the descent. The presented research is designed to benefit the entire UAS community as well as the public, by allowing for safer UAS operations, which in turn also allow faster and less expensive integration of UAS in the NAS.

The current study will examine the effect of helicopter parenting on college students’ psychosocial outcomes, such as self-esteem and self-esteem. Helicopter parenting is commonly defined as parental over-involvement to their children’s live, which can negatively affect children’s self-esteem and self-efficacy since helicopter parenting, in general, is argued as not developmentally appropriate parenting for young adult children. The study uses about 208 undergraduate students at one of major universities in southern region in the U.S. The current study aims to examine the link between helicopter parenting and college students’ self-esteem and self-efficacy, which are critical for developing positive and healthy identity during adolescence and emerging adulthood.

The current study will examine the dynamics among helicopter parenting, college students’ psychosocial outcomes, such as self-esteem, depression, and relational/social aggression. Helicopter parenting is commonly defined as parental over-involvement to their children’s live, which can negatively affect children’s self-esteem and depression self-efficacy since helicopter parenting, in general, is argued as not developmentally appropriate parenting for young adult children. The current study specifically will examine whether college student’s self-esteem and depressive symptoms would mediate helicopter parenting and children’s being relational/social aggression toward peers. The study uses about 208 undergraduate students at one of major universities in southern region in the U.S.

The current study will examine the dynamics among helicopter parenting, parent-child relationships, and college students’ psychosocial outcomes, such as self-esteem and depressive symptoms. Helicopter parenting is commonly defined as parental over-involvement to their children’s live, which can negatively affect children’s self-esteem and depressive symptoms since helicopter parenting, in general, is argued as not developmentally appropriate parenting for young adult children. However, the negative impact of helicopter parenting can be buffered when children have positive relationships with parents. Hence, the current study will examine whether college student’s self-esteem and depressive symptoms are affected by helicopter parenting and whether the parent-child relationships can moderate the link between helicopter parenting and college students’ self-esteem and depressive symptoms. The study uses about 208 undergraduate students at one of major universities in southern region in the U.S.

The purpose of this research was to develop parametric Design-to-Cost models for selected major subsystems of certain helicopters. This was accomplished by analyzing the relationships between historical production costs and certain design parameters which are available during the preliminary design phase of the life cycle. Several potential contributions are identified in the areas of academia, government, and industry. Application of the cost models will provide estimates beneficial to the government and DoD by allowing derivation of realistic Design-to-Cost estimates. In addition, companies in the helicopter industry will benefit by using the models for two key purposes: (1) optimizing helicopter design through cost-effective tradeoffs, and (2) justifying a proposal estimate.

The first purpose of this study was to investigate the direct effects of three subtypes of social withdrawal (shyness, social avoidance, and unsociability, respectively) on internalizing outcomes (depression, emotional dysregulation, and self-worth, respectively) in emerging adulthood and to examine these effects by gender. A second purpose was to examine if parenting moderates (i.e., exacerbates or buffers) the main effects of social withdrawal on internalizing outcomes. Participants included 790 undergraduate students from four universities in the United States (Mage = 19.61, SD = 1.85, range = 18–29; 243 males, 547 females) and their mothers. Regression analyses established that shyness was associated with higher levels of depression and emotional dysregulation as well as lower self-worth for males and females. Social avoidance was linked with higher levels of depression and emotional dysregulation for females only. Finally, unsociability was associated with lower levels of depression and dysregulation for both genders. Analyses also established that parenting did not moderate depression, emotional dysregulation, or self-worth with regard to shyness or social avoidance. However, helicopter parenting moderated the links between unsociability and depression. Authoritative parenting moderated the links between unsociability and dysregulation and self-worth. Discussion focuses on the outcomes for emerging adults and the moderating roles of gender and parenting.

The quadrotor helicopter is a unique flying vehicle which uses the thrust from four motors to provide hover flight capability. The uncoupled nature of the longitudinal and lateral axes and its ability to support large payloads with respect to its size make it an attractive vehicle for autonomous vehicle research. In this thesis, the quadrotor is modeled based on first principles and a proportional-derivative control method is applied for attitude stabilization and position control. A unique means of using an optic flow sensor for velocity and position estimation in an indoor setting is presented with flight results. Reliable hover flight and hallway following capabilities are exhibited in GPS-denied indoor flight using only onboard sensors. Attitude angles can be reliably estimated in the short run by integrating the angular rates from MEMS gyros, but noise on the signal leads to drift which renders the measurement unsuitable to attitude estimation. Typical methods of providing vector attitude corrections such as accelerometers and magnetometers have inherent weaknesses on hovering vehicles. Thus, an additional vector measurement is necessary to correct attitude readings for long-term flights. Two methods of using image processing to determine vanishing points in a hallway are demonstrated. The more promising of the two uses a Hough transform to detect lines in the image and forms a histogram of the intersections to detect likely vanishing point candidates. Once the vanishing point is detected, it acts as a vector measurement to correct attitude estimates on the quadrotor vehicle. Results using onboard vision to estimate heading are demonstrated on a test stand. Together, these capabilities improve the utility of the quadrotor platform for flight without the need of any external sensing capability.

In order for a human-powered helicopter (HPH) to fly, lifting the weight of its human pilot-engine and the weight of its own structure, the rotary wings need to be extremely large and exceptionally lightweight. Through centuries of dreaming and decades of modern attempts, no design so far has been able to obtain the combination of an adequately large rotor size, sufficiently lightweight structure, and an inherently stable aircraft. This thesis describes a concept of a wire-braced semi-rigid elevated rotor system for a proposed HPH. Then, using scale models and quantitative analysis, tests a series of supporting hypotheses in order to prove that such a large rotor system could be sufficiently lightweight, maintain its geometry to overcome coning and twisting, avoid interplanar interference, produce sufficient lift, yield inherent aircraft stabilty, and demonstrate that the drag penalty induced by external bracing wires would be more than offset by the benefits of wire bracing.

This research investigates the Training Effectiveness of a low-cost, PC-based training system when compared with two modes (motion and no motion) of a cab training system with large screen for various aviation flying tasks. While much research on this topic has been done in the past, advances in technology have significantly altered what is considered a "low-cost" "simulator." The technology advances have in effect increased the ability of a "low-cost" "simulator" to deliver desired experiences to the user. These "simulators" often are nothing more than PC training system, with only notional representations of the actual aircraft. This research considers the use of such training systems in training for a highly complex and dynamic task situation, that task being a search and rescue mission. A search and rescue mission is far more complex task than those studied for possible "low-cost" simulation substitution in the past. To address that aspect, one mode of the cab involves motion in two degrees of freedom. The results of this research advances the body of literature on the capability of "low-cost" simulation to deliver the experiences necessary to learn highly complex tasks associated with search and rescue as well as further clarify the extent to which a motion platform aides in flight training. This research utilizes available platforms provided by the US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command Simulation and Training Technology Center. Additionally, all the participants in the research are in training to be helicopter pilots. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three training configurations: a) Cab with motion turned ON, b) Cab with motion turned OFF and c) PC-based simulator. Training effectiveness is evaluated using measures for learning, task performance, and human factors. Statistically significant results are shown for the Cab with Motion and the Cab with No Motion configurations.

Bakgrund: Rapid sequence induction and intubation (RSII) används för att snabbt och säkert söva och intubera patienter som har en hotad eller ofri luftväg på grund av sjukdom eller trauma. Det är ett komplext ingrepp där potenta läkemedel används som slår ut den spontana andningsdriven. Att genomföra svåra interventioner i prehospital miljö i Sverige är något som behöver studeras för att skapa en förståelse för komplexiteten av den avancerade prehospitala sjukvården. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att beskriva specialistsjuksköterskans erfarenheter av att genomföra prehospital RSII inom helikopterverksamheten. Metod: Studien genomfördes med en kvalitativ studiedesign med induktiv ansats. Åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med deltagare från olika helikopterbaser runt om i Sverige. Inhämtad data analyserades genom en manifest kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Analysarbetet producerade tre kategorier: varje vårdtillfälle är unik i situationen, att skapa en optimal arbetsmiljö och vikten av kunskap, fortbildning och teamarbete. Slutsats: Att genomföra prehospital RSII upplevdes inte som en stressande intervention då besättningarna överlag besitter mycket erfarenhet och en hög formell och reell kompetens. Styrkan är att momentet övas kontinuerligt och att det finns rutiner med tydliga checklistor som efterföljs. Att bedöma om det är mest optimalt att genomföra interventionen i helikoptern och därmed lyfta snabbt mot sjukhus, eller stanna kvar på skadeplats och genomföra RSII tenderade att rendera i storlek på helikopter och sågs som en av de stora skillnaderna som påverkade erfarenheten. Att ständigt överväga det optimala tillvägagångssättet i varje intervention sågs som nödvändigt och anpassning av utrustning sågs som en viktig erfarenhet.