Although hybrid-electric cars are becoming commonplace, similar technology applied to airplanes comes with significantly different challenges. University of Illinois aerospace engineers are addressing some of them toward the development of a more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels to power airplanes.

When a plane overshoots the final approach, often the pilot’s natural — and dangerous — instinct is to pitch the aircraft up to slow down and land. It’s one of the leading causes of accidents, especially with small airplanes. But what if that same mistake happened at 5,000 feet instead?

For the third iteration, the AUDS (anti-unmanned aerial vehicle defense system) recently returned to Fort Sill for the Maneuver Fires Integrated Experiment (MFIX). During the last few MFIX events, the AUDS, which works to detect, track, identify and defeat unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), has evolved from its design as a simple focused-energy weapon to a non-lethal/lethal system by pairing its focused energy to a 30 mm chain gun. At MFIX 2018, the AUDS evolved again, this time developing a passive detection program.

It’s about speed, and Sandia National Laboratories, with a hypersonic wind tunnel and advanced laser diagnostic technology, is in a position to help U.S. defense agencies understand the physics associated with aircraft flying five times the speed of sound. With potential adversaries reporting successes in their own programs to develop aircraft that can be flown at Mach 5 or greater speeds, U.S. development of autonomous hypersonic systems is a top defense priority. That has made aerospace engineer Steven Beresh of Sandia’s aerosciences department and his colleagues at the hypersonic wind tunnel popular lately.

The bionic power knee harvester, also known as the PowerWalk, is an energy-harvesting device that is attached to both the upper and lower areas of both legs and generates power from movement. The device extracts the energy when the knee is flexed and negative work is being performed. The system adjusts to a person’s gait, so soldiers don’t feel like they are wearing a device and can even forget that they have it on.

Thanks to one peculiar characteristic of carbon nanotubes, engineers will be able to measure the accumulated strain in an airplane over the entire surface or down to microscopic levels. They’ll do so by shining a light onto structures coated with a two-layer nanotube film and protective polymer.

Airbus and Georgia Tech opened the Airbus/Georgia Tech Center for Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)-enabled Overall Aircraft Design (OAD). The center will contribute to the development and demonstration of a concurrent overall aircraft design process with a team of 30 Georgia Tech researchers, doctoral students, and Airbus experts.

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One alternative aircraft propulsion technology being explored is an array of electrically powered ducted fans distributed across the wing span or integrated into the wing. Researchers are studying the cross-communication – or cross coupling – between the aircraft engine’s RPM and the airflow characteristics about the airplane wing.

Soldiers on the ground are now capable of rapidly reacting to electronic and cyber data rather than waiting on their higher echelons. Soldiers assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, currently deployed in Poland, are among the first brigades supporting Atlantic Resolve to train on a new system that enables a team to forward deploy and respond to enemy frequencies using new electronic warfare (EW) technology.

A new rocket program could help cut research and development time for new weapons systems from as many as 15 years to less than five. Sandia National Laboratories developed the new program, called the High Operational Tempo Sounding Rocket Program (HOT SHOT), and integrated it for its first launch earlier this year under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s direction.