This thesis describes the preliminary design of a system for remote terrain exploration and environmental sampling on worlds with dense atmospheres. The motivation for the system is to provide a platform for long-term scientific studies of these celestial bodies. The proposed system consists of three main components: a buoyancy-driven glider, designed to operate at low altitude; a tethered energy harvester, extracting wind energy at high altitudes; and a base station to recharge the gliders. This system is self-sustaining, extracting energy from the planetary boundary layer.
A nine degree of freedom vehicle dynamic model has been developed for the buoyancydriven glider. This model was used to illustrate anecdotal evidence of the stability and controllability of the system. A representative system was simulated to examine the energy harvesting concept. / Master of Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/34186 |
| Date | 18 August 2005 |
| Creators | Morrow, Michael Thomas |
| Contributors | Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, Woolsey, Craig A., Schaub, Hanspeter, Mason, William H. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, text/plain, text/plain, text/plain |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | Thesis.pdf, Figures9-10.txt, Figure8-Figure11.2005.08.09.txt, Abstract.txt |
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