Aerospace, Volume 12, Issue 4

Satellite formation flying faces significant challenges in maintaining its desired configurations due to various orbital perturbations, particularly in low-Earth-orbit environments. This paper presents a novel approach to generating fuel-optimal refe...

This paper presents a multi-fidelity optimization procedure for aircraft wing design, implemented in the early stages of the aircraft design process. Since wing shape is a key factor that influences aerodynamic performance, having an accurate estimat...

This paper presents an ultrasonic sampling penetrator with a staggered-impact mode, which has been developed for the extraction of lunar water ice. A comparison of this penetrator with existing drilling and sampling equipment reveals its effectivenes...

In response to the demand for the evaluation of the actual navigation performance (ANP) of rotorcraft logistics uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) navigation systems in urban scenarios, this paper proposes a method for evaluating the ANP of rotorcraft log...

Aircraft skin surface defect detection is critical for aviation safety but is currently mostly reliant on manual or visual inspections. Recent advancements in computer vision offer opportunities for automation. This paper reviews the current state of...

Due to the limitations of pure electric power endurance, turbo-electric hybrid power systems, which offer a high power-to-weight ratio, present a reliable solution for medium- and large-sized vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. Traditional...

This study explores the damage behavior of typical titanium alloy aircraft panel structures under high-speed fragment impacts via ballistic experiments and FEM-SPH simulations. Using a ballistic gun and two-stage light gas gun, tests were conducted w...

This study presents an innovative numerical investigation into the synergistic effects of pre-tensile loading and multi-fragment hypervelocity impacts on thin-walled 7075-T6 aluminum alloy structures, addressing a critical gap in aircraft survivabili...

Space trajectory planning is a complex combinatorial problem that requires selecting discrete sequences of celestial bodies while simultaneously optimizing continuous transfer parameters. Traditional optimization methods struggle with the increasing...

The solid-fuel scramjet has become a potential power device for hypersonic missiles in the future and has important military application prospects due to its advantages in gas flow regulation, flame stability, and blended combustion efficiency. This...

A spin flight vehicle is characterized by its inherent active or passive spinning motion, resulting in complex movements that pose challenges for accurately calculating aerodynamic forces. This often leads to significant discrepancies between simulat...

A low Reynolds number (Re) environment leads to severe deterioration in compressor performance, and it is necessary and challenging to accurately predict performance at a low Re during the design phase of a compressor. This study first reveals the me...

Subjective selection of simulation interface shapes may introduce errors in the strength and fatigue analysis of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs). However, the applicability of different interface shapes for the TBCs simulation has rarely been investi...

The accurate prediction of space target trajectories is critical for aerospace defense and space situational awareness, yet it remains challenging due to complex nonlinear dynamics, measurement noise, and environmental uncertainties. This study propo...

Electrothermal anti-/de-icing systems are widely used in aircraft, and the structures of these systems generally consist of multiple layers laminated together. In service, laminated structures are prone to structural deformation and delamination, whi...

Scaled flight demonstrators have played an important part throughout the history of aviation. Ranging from aviation pioneers to renowned institutions like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), many actors have relied on miniaturiz...

When operating an unmanned aircraft system within the specific category beyond Air Risk Class a or within the certified category, a detect and avoid system is required in order to mitigate the risk of colliding with manned aircraft. To demonstrate co...

To study the interference effects of the fuselage/rear-mounted propeller on the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic characteristics at a forward speed of Ma = 0.323, a multi-component flowfield simulation and an aeroacoustic prediction method were employed....

To achieve the sustainability goals set for the European aviation sector, hydrogen-powered solutions are currently being investigated. Storage solutions are of particular interest, with liquid hydrogen tanks posing numerous challenges with regard to...

The random fluctuations in inlet flow represent a common uncertainty in aero-engine compressors, necessitating the control of its effects through blade optimization design. To account for the impact of inlet flow fluctuations on performance in blade...

This paper addresses public acceptance of a proposed sub-regional, hydrogen–electric, aviation service reporting initial empirical evidence from the UK HEART project. The objective was to assess public acceptance of a wide range of service feat...

This paper presents an autonomous end-to-end guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) solution for a reusable launcher, addressing the challenges of precision pinpoint landing and reusability. The proposed GNC system integrates advanced onboard trajec...

Elastic rings are extensively utilized in aero-engine rotor systems owing to their compact size and ease of assembly, where they play a critical role in vibration suppression during engine operation. The dynamic behavior of elastic rings is governed...

This study proposes an advanced space radiation shielding design method that integrates multi-objective optimization with reliability evaluation to mitigate the impact of harsh space radiation environments on electronic systems. A genetic algorithm i...

The rapid expansion of China’s civil aviation sector, particularly within the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei airport cluster, has led to significant airspace congestion and operational inefficiencies. This study develops a dynamic flight slot allocation...

Icing wind tunnel tests play a critical role in evaluating ice accretion on aero-engine nacelles. However, the effects of the wind tunnel wall (WTW) on the dynamics of the icing cloud remain insufficiently quantified. This study employs an experiment...

The trend toward conducting vision-based spacecraft pose estimation using deep neural networks, which necessitates accurately labeled datasets for training, is addressed in this paper. A method for generating an image regression-labeled dataset for s...

Our investigation delves into the scaling law governing planetary cratering impacts. We meticulously analyze the interplay between dimensionless parameters driving crater growth and the morphological transition of craters and construct the scaling an...

The development of advanced air mobility—an eco-friendly, next-generation transportation system—is underway and garners significant attention. Due to the novel propulsion concept of eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing) and its o...

The Chang’E-6 lunar mission successfully collected the lunar back surface and subsurface lunar regolith by excavating and drilling and returned the lunar regolith samples to the earth. Drilling–sampling system exhibits highly nonlinear characteristic...

The discrete element method (DEM) is one of the most popular methods for simulating lunar soil simulants due to the lack of real lunar soil. To reduce the computational consumption and difficulty because of complex particle models, simplified particl...

Pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) is an important wind tunnel testing technology. Compared with conventional PSP, the performance and test accuracy of cryogenic PSP are still immature. Therefore, investigating how to improve the pressure sensitivity of...

The current generation of integrated power systems is represented by the Adaptive Power and Thermal Management System (APTMS). The coupled performance between the APTMS and the aircraft engine significantly increases the difficulty of energy manageme...

We present the design and manufacturing of a deployable conical log spiral spring antenna for small spacecraft, along with a test campaign to evaluate its suitability for space applications. The conical spring was 45.7 cm in height, with base and ape...

This paper presents a rigid–elastic coupling dynamic model for a morphing aircraft with variable-sweep wings, developed using Kane’s method. The model accurately captures the interactions between flight dynamics and structural dynamics du...

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is widely used in various applications of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) that require precise positioning or navigation. However, GNSS signals can be blocked in specific environments and are susceptible...

In a supersonic flow, disturbances of different parameters arise. These perturbations can have a significant impact on the interaction of the flow with the surface. When gas flow passes through a shock wave, perturbations are transformed depending on...

Human–robot collaboration for lunar surface exploration requires high safety standards and tedious operational procedures. This process generates extensive task-related data, including various types of faults and influencing factors. However, t...

In this paper, a data-driven system identification method is presented based on the data fusion of a dynamic model and flight test data. The dynamic model is built by a combination of nonlinear auto-regressive networks (NARX) and the steady-state mod...

While traffic levels are predicted to rise, nearly all European air navigation service providers suffer from staff shortages. In most cases, two air traffic controllers are deployed to control one airspace sector. Enabling the deployment of one contr...

The potential of utilizing the rejected heat of a fuel cell system to improve the aircraft propulsive efficiency is discussed for various flight conditions. The thermodynamic background of the process and the connection of power consumption in the fa...

As globalization and rapid economic development drive a surge in air transportation demand, the need for enhanced efficiency and safety in flight operations has become increasingly critical. However, the exponential growth in flight numbers has exace...

In recent years, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has expanded in and across various fields, including agriculture, observation, and transportation. Generally, the landing distance of fixed-wing UAVs increases with speed. In particular, the...

The present work is aimed at investigating the arrangement design of an inner tilted-rotor hexacopter to optimize aerodynamic performance with different rotor spacing ratios (s/D) and dihedral angles (β). Both experiments and numerical simulatio...

Distributed propulsion systems are strategically placed along the aircraft wingspan to ingest the fuselage boundary layer, thereby enhancing propulsion efficiency. However, the aerodynamic effects of S-shaped duct geometry on a distributed propulsion...

Understanding and clarifying the excavation mechanism of lunar soil, as well as the interaction between the sampling shovel and lunar soil, are crucial for improving surface sampling efficiency and ensuring equipment safety. Based on the Swick and Pe...

Pose estimation plays a crucial role in on-orbit servicing technologies. Currently, point cloud registration-based pose estimation methods for noncooperative spacecraft still face the issue of misalignment due to similar point cloud structural featur...

The dynamic mode decomposition serves as a useful tool for the coherent structure extraction of the complex flow fields with characteristic frequency identification, but the phase information of the flow modes is paid less attention to. In this study...

This paper introduces an adaptive Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (INDI) control methodology with guaranteed stability for a highly maneuverable unmanned aerial manipulator (UAM) designed to operate under demanding conditions, such as rapid a...

This paper investigates an adaptive fault-tolerant control strategy for the Twin Otter aircraft, aimed at addressing critical challenges arising from system uncertainties and actuator faults. A global prescribed performance function is employed to en...