Future autonomous systems may need to operate in contested environments where GPS is unavailable and radio-frequency emissions are restricted. This project will develop and demonstrate a small uncrewed aircraft system that can perform a search-and-mark mission using only onboard sensing, computation, and autonomy. The UAS will launch from a known location, navigate without GPS, search for an object of interest, identify the object, illuminate it with a pointable eye-safe collimated light source, and return home without intentional RF emissions during the mission. The object of interest will be a life vest placed at least 200 m from the launch site within a search region of at least 30" m"×30" m" , and it will not be visible from the launch point. During the mission, operators may observe the system but may not provide input, commands, navigation updates, or object-location cues to the UAS. Mission execution should be performed autonomously after launch.

Student Teams Will
• Design or integrate a UAS platform capable of autonomous operation without GPS-based navigation.
• Develop onboard sensing with onboard or off board estimation methods for navigating relative to the launch point.
• Implement autonomous search behaviors for locating a life vest in an area not visible from launch.
• Develop computer vision or other sensing algorithms to detect the life vest, compute can either be onboard or communicated through a non-RF link
• Integrate a pointable eye-safe collimated light source to illuminate the life vest after detection that can dwell on the life vest for an amount of time prescribed at the start of the mission ranging from 10 seconds to 5 minutes.
• Estimate the life vest location relative to the launch point with less than 8 m error.
• Demonstrate autonomous mission execution without operator input during flight and without intentional RF emissions.
Student Teams Are Encouraged to Pursue
• Providing mission status or operator feedback while maintaining the no-RF-emission and no-operator-input constraints.
• Implementing SLAM, visual-inertial odometry, optical flow, or other GPS-denied navigation methods.
• Improving autonomous search efficiency and return-to-home accuracy.
• Operating in cluttered environments or against cluttered visual backgrounds.
• Operating in degraded visual environments, such as low light, glare, dust, haze, shadows, or partial occlusion.
• Improving object detection confidence and reducing false detections.
• Demonstrating robust performance over multiple trials with varied life vest placement.

Creation of a Modular Emulation and Demonstration Tool (MEDT) for use in demonstrating hardware in the loop (HWIL) capabilities.

Creation of this tool will involve creating a modular plug and play system with swappable components that attach to a modular skeleton capable of being installed into a 3D printed model.

The system would be able to connect to each component sense the type of component and connect in with the appropriate communication protocol. For input components (IMU, ground height sensor) the system should take in those inputs and relay commands to the output components (fin actuators or tvc actuators)

Stretch work: The system would be able to ingest a trajectory and mimic the commands for the available systems (ie, fin actuators, nozzle actuators, seeker/sensors).

This project will produce design correlations for heat transfer and pressure drop for additively manufactured channels. Over the course of the project, the team members will design and build an experiment to measure the internal convective heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop for additively manufactured specimens. The team will then process the data resulting from their test plan. Finally, the team will derive design correlations for use by gas turbine designers. This program will involve elements of product design, experimental methods, instrumentation, manufacturing, and data analysis.

Design, build, and validate an automated cable maintenance system that cleans, winds, and optionally tests electrical cables used in proving grounds operations. The system shall safely remove contaminants without damaging cables or connectors, accommodate a range of cable sizes and lengths, automate cable handling and winding, and improve efficiency by reducing technician labor, turnaround time, and cable replacement costs.

Integrate the TG331 Honeywell Aerospace turbogen concept into the bed of a Tesla Cybertruck. This will be done to determine feasibility and technical challenges of the project which will be used for technical demonstration and marketing. Five subsystems will be required for the integration:
1) Engine mounting system
2) Inlet and Exhaust system
3) Fuel system tank and lines
4) Electrical systems - turbogen starting, vehicle battery charging, integration and mounting of PCUs, and user interface box
5) Integration and mounting of Thermal Management System (TMS)

This challenging and engaging project is to develop and test a novel and complete stand-alone bioreactor system to study the variables that affect both the growth and quality of both muscle and cartilage tissues. This will be done under different stress mechanisms including compressive forces, tensile forces, electro-stimulation and growth medium make-up. It will be able to utilize state-of-the-art bio-printed scaffolds as necessary for this study and will be designed to be capable of developing cartilage with a bone attach layer, a transition layer (the osteochondral interface) and the cartilage cushion layer.
Incorporated into the design is the capability to study muscle growth and repair relative to tensile forces and electro-stimulation from both animal cadavers as well as study the formation and growth from primary cells relative to these two stress variables.

The goal of this project is to iterate upon the existing F2 platform to design and prototype a liquid version of the device. This requires solving complex optomechanical and electrical engineering challenges surrounding excitation and emission geometry, component selection.
Specifically, the team will evaluate the tradeoffs between a compact, handheld form factor and a benchtop system while optimizing the spectrometer's internal components for liquid sample analysis.

The goal of this project is to design, build, and validate a variable-conjugate optical illumination system for characterizing cameras and imaging systems.
The proposed system will generate a controlled optical target, such as a point source, slit, resolution chart, or other test pattern, and create an apparent object distance that can be varied over a defined range. For example, the system may simulate an object located approximately 100 mm from a camera at an intermediate finite distance, or an object infinitely far away.

A wavefront sensor, such as an OptiQuiver wavefront sensor from Quartus, will measure the radius of curvature and quality of the output wavefront. This measurement will provide closed-loop feedback to the optical system. A user may enter a desired conjugate distance, and the system will adjust the optical configuration until the measured wavefront curvature corresponds to the requested object distance.
The completed system may be used to evaluate camera focus position, depth of field, spatial frequency response, modulation transfer function, and other imaging performance characteristics.

***This project is conducting remote interviews. Please see remote interview sheet on BrightSpace (D2L) to schedule a time to speak to the sponsor.***

As AI frameworks continue to evolve at a rapid pace, next generation of CPO (Co-Packaged Optics) architectures are necessary to meet the increased demand for bandwidth and energy efficient data transmission. Glass Core Substrates can enable large scale integration of multiple chiplets in a package due to its tunable modulus, dimensional stability and a Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE) that is closer to that of silicon. It can also enable an integrated photonic-electronic platform as electrical wiring, and optical waveguides can co-exist in the same glass substrate. Formation of sharp, defect free and precisely located waveguides is a must for enabling such a platform. While significant strides are being made to form these glass waveguides, metrologies to accurately characterize are pre-mature or lacking.

Develop models to provide realistic visualization of an aircraft landing from the pilot's perspective. Stage 1 includes static renderings, Stage 2 will generate a series of models, when assembled will create a video simulation of an aircraft landing and the resulting illumination of the runway.

Factors that greatly affect the quality of simulation include a detailed 3d model of the aircraft cockpit and all of it's physical geometry and optical properties, color, reflectance, scattering properties. In addition to the cockpit, the landing zone will also need detailed properties including exact size and markings for a major airport runway/s