Phase II Final Report - NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts

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Planetary Exploration Using Biomimetics An Entomopter for Flight on Mars Navigation would be accomplished as follows: The refueling rover would maintain a general awareness of its environment through various sensors, including radar. The radar, if configured as a monopulse Doppler system, could provide range, azimuth, elevation, and relative speed of targets within its hemisphere of influence. The rover will be able to determine these parameters for each of the Entomopters as they are launched and fly in the rover's vicinity. This positional information can then be impressed upon the radar signal as a modulation. When an Entomopter is painted by the radar beam, it will receive information about its own position, that of other Entomopters, and the refueling rover. The relative position of looming obstacles can also be communicated. In addition, radar will serve as a transponder to elicit responses from each Entomopter as it is painted by the radar beam. This response will contain telemetry information identifying the specific Entomopter, its health status, fuel remaining, above-ground-level (AGL) altitude as locally measured by the Entomopter, as well as any other low bandwidth information of import. One key feature of the transponder signal is that it is passive. Because the radar signal from the rover necessarily has a return that is reflected back to the rover, the Entomopter may use techniques to modulate the radar cross section (RCS) to impress its telemetry information onto the radar return passively. In this way, the Entomopter need not expend any energy in transmission. A property of an omnidirectional retroreflector made of trihedral facets is that it will redirect incident radiation (from the rover) back along its transmission path (regardless of the retroreflector orientation). For this reason, the orientation of the Entomopter need not be tracked or even known. It is completely passive in this regard and even works when illuminated by multiple sources simultaneously. It is independent of flight path and orientation. The reflectivity of the entire retroreflector can be modulated by changing the RCS of the corner reflector elements electronically. This involves changing the RCS, for example, by ionizing an area that momentarily creates or destroys the corner reflector. To ionize a small region takes high voltage, but essentially no current, so it is very low power. It is also rapid, so it can be used to passively modulate the radar return with amplitude or phase information, or possibly polarization. The U.S. Naval Research Lab (NRL) has demonstrated laser activated quantum well remodulators with data rates of 4.2 Mbits per second from a hovering UAV. They expect to achieve as much as 10 Mbits per second in the future. The power required would be what it takes to light up a small neon bulb. The key is the placement of the remodulator. Upon sensing the signal from the refueling rover as it passes over the Entomopter, an ID code would be impressed upon the reflected signal that tells the rover, “This is Entomopter No. 2 and I am currently at an altitude of four meters, and have nine minutes of fuel remaining.” This method provides widearea coverage, avoids Entomopter-borne tracking or pointing systems, and avoids frequency interference between Entomopters. Position updates for the Entomopters will need to be no more than a few times per second (when not in the landing mode), or even less. The rover is not flying the Entomopter (which is fully autonomous) so continual position updates are not necessary. These updates let the rover know only where the Entomopter is relative to itself and the other Entomopter(s). Similarly, health monitoring does not need to occur more than a few times per second. If the Entomopter is self monitoring, it will have a high internal diagnostic bandwidth, but the “I'm OK” signal back to 226 Phase II Final Report
Chapter 4.0 Entomopter Flight Operations 4.2 Rover-centric Entomopter Navigation the refueling rover does not need to be frequent, nor of high bandwidth. Even if there is a problem, there is little that the rover can do to help. The robustness has to be built into the Entomopter. Without expending energy by radiating signals back to the rover, therefore, the Entomopter can: • Know where it is relative to the rover, • Know where other Entomopters are relative to its own rover-referenced position, • Know where local obstacles are relative to its own rover-referenced position, and • Exploit the radar beacon to hone in on the rover coordinates when returning to refuel. This concept can even be extended to gross collision avoidance, wherein the rover warns the Entomopters of surrounding obstacles, although short range onboard systems may be more desirable for last-minute, emergency reactions to avoid collisions. 4.2.1 Minimum Energy Short Range Obstacle Avoidance System The terrestrial Entomopter with its reciprocating chemical muscle system is capable of emitting short range frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) acoustic ranging beams that are swept in a forward hemisphere by the flapping wing action, and this could also be applied to the Mars context. This feature is essentially free in terms of energy expenditure, because it capitalizes on waste gas from the reciprocating chemical muscle that would otherwise be vented into the atmosphere. Using acoustic ranging methods similar to bat navigation, the Entomopter is able to recycle waste products from locomotive respiration to create an FMCW ultrasonic emission for obstacle avoidance and altimetry. A miniature gas-operated ultrasonic transmitter for the Entomopter has been demonstrated as part of the DARPA/DSO Mesomachines for Military Applications program. [186] 227
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Planetary Exploration Using Biomime
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Table of Contents Table of Contents
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List of Tables List of Tables Table
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List of Figures List of Figures Fig
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List of Figures Figure 3-54: Pressu
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List of Figures Figure 3-138: Stere
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List of Figures Figure 4-24: Averag
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List of Contributors List of Contri
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Executive Summary Executive Summary
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Chapter 1.0 Introduction Chapter 1.
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Chapter 1.0 Introduction Figure 1-2
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Chapter 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Histor
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Chapter 1.0 Introduction 1.2 Origin
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Chapter 1.0 Introduction 1.3 Missio
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1.3.3.1 Surface Imaging The Entomop
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Chapter 2.0 Entomopter Configuratio
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Chapter 3.0 Vehicle Design 3.1 Wing
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3. Density: 1.40E-2 kg/m 3 4. Press
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Chapter 3.0 Vehicle Design 3.4 Reci
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Chapter 3.0 Vehicle Design 3.5 Fuel
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Appendix A: Mars Atmosphere Data Ge
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Appendix A: Mars Atmosphere Data Ge
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Appendix A: Mars Atmosphere Data Ma
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Appendix B: Sizing Results Appendix
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Appendix B: Sizing Results 30 Wing
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Appendix B: Sizing Results 16 Wing
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Appendix B: Sizing Results Length 0
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Appendix B: Sizing Results Lenght 0
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Appendix C: List of References Appe
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Appendix C: List of References 41.
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Phase II Final Report - NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts

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