In this study, using a multidisciplinary approach and numerical optimisations, a novel standalone flight path optimiser (SAFPO) solution is proposed and developed to choose the best flight path for a flight between two points in accordance with the cost objectives. SAFPO uses its own performance calculator, predefined ATC routes, and known weather information to find the optimum flight path which minimises fuel consumption and/or flight time. The resulting performance characteristics of the aircraft and the optimisation process are compared with the actual information provided within the flight manual of a Beechcraft Baron G58 aircraft. The optimisation results show that SAFPO can be used to make advances in the daily operations of small and local airlines suffering from a lack of aircraft performance data and help them to choose the scenario that best accomplishes their cost objectives.

This paper enhances a virtual reality ground control station (VR-GCS) for remotely piloted airships by integrating haptic gloves and a virtual controller within a VR environment. Using Unity and FlightGear flight simulator, the system combines VR visualization, haptic feedback, and flight simulation for immersive control. A NASA TLX-based evaluation involving 10 users revealed that the VR-haptics system significantly reduced workload, effort, and frustration compared to traditional controllers. The results highlight the system's potential as a training tool for replacing physical RC controllers, providing a safe, portable, and effective solution for improving pilot situational awareness in immersive environments.

A comprehensive digital framework for UAM simulation is presented, integrating extended reality (XR) and digital twin technologies to create a realistic and versatile testbed. Utilizing Unreal Engine 5 and JSBSim for flight dynamics, the project replicates UAM vehicles’ real-world behaviours, environmental conditions, and human-machine interfaces (HMI) within a virtual ecosystem. Key components include accurate flight dynamics models, real-time weather and time-of-day simulations, and detailed digital twins of aircraft and urban terrains like downtown Toronto. This integration enhances pilot training and operational planning by simulating various UAM scenarios. The framework ensures high fidelity and synchronization between computational and visual domains, offering an immersive simulation experience.

This paper investigates the intertwined influence of propeller effects and elasticity on the aerodynamics of small propeller-driven aircraft and UAVs. Through a detailed methodology, a twin-engine propeller-driven aircraft is analyzed as a case study, providing insights into the proposed approach. Two critical analyses are presented: an examination of propeller effects in rigid aircraft and the incorporation of elastic wing properties. The former establishes a foundational understanding of aerodynamic behaviour, while the latter explores the impact of wing elasticity on performance. Validation is achieved through comparative analysis with wind tunnel test results from a similar rigid structure aircraft. Utilizing NASTRAN software V2010.1, aerodynamic analysis of the elastic aircraft is conducted, complemented by semi-empirical insights. The results highlight the importance of these factors across different angles of attack.

In this work, a multi-disciplinary design process was used to conceptually design a Box Fan-in-Split-wing Tiltrotor eVTOL aircraft. An unconventional methodology was used to design the UAM aircraft, and the following parameters are considered: capable of vertical take-off and landing, highly aerodynamic with a high lift-to-drag ratio, low Cd0 modern and appealing, rechargeable or battery swappable and feature to minimize or negate propeller drag. MAPLA and XFOIL were used to identify the aerodynamic properties of the aircraft. Upon determining the key parameters and the mission requirements and objectives, a list of possible VTOL configurations was derived from theoretical and existing designs. The Box Fan-in-Split-wing Tiltrotor eVTOL aircraft aims to address the aerodynamic inefficiencies of earlier designs such as propeller effects in cruise and engine mounts drag. The potential benefits of this aircraft, such as increased range, endurance, and payload capacity, make it an exciting prospect in the field of Urban Air Mobility.

An extended reality communication system, methods, apparatus, and computer program product are disclosed.  The communication system provides for remote real-time communication between a proctor and an operator, where the operator is performing tasks on a local work object, such as a patient. The system incorporates a combination of haptic, virtual keyboard, VR, XR, and audio inputs to provide communication of instructions between the proctor and the operator that are projected as a holographic image in a field of view on the patient. The system includes a proctor station and an operator station communicatively coupled with one or more servers.

Numerous research studies are still being conducted to improve pilot safety during challenging situations, especially during low visibility conditions and landing scenarios. Besides flight navigation, aerospace engineers are exploring many modern cloud-based AR systems to be used as remote and/or AI-powered assist tools for field operators, such as maintenance technicians, manufacturing operators, and Air Traffic Control Officers (ATCO). Thanks to the rapid advancement in computer vision and deep neural network architectures, modern AR technologies can also scan or reconstruct the 3D environment with high precision in real time. This feature typically utilizes the depth cameras onboard or independent from the AR devices, helping engineers rapidly identify problems during an inspection and implement the appropriate solutions. Some studies also suggest 3D printing of reconstructed models for additive manufacturing. This chapter covers several aspects and potentials of AR technology in the aerospace sector, including those already adopted by the companies and those currently under research.

The focus of this study was to implement a robust and efficient possibility-based design optimization (PBDO) method for the MDO of an eVTOL tilt-wing aircraft in the conceptual design phase, using existing conventional designs as an initial configuration. As implemented, the optimization framework utilizes a deterministic gradient-based optimizer, run sequentially with a possibility assessment algorithm, to select an optimal design. To achieve this, the uncertainties which arise from multi-fidelity calculations, such as semi-empirical methods, are considered and used to modify the final design such that its viability is guaranteed in the detailed design phase. With respect to various requirements, including trim, stability, and control behaviors, the optimized eVTOL tilt-wing aircraft design offers the preferred results which ensure that airworthiness criteria are met whilst complying with predefined constraints. The proposed approach may be used to revise currently available light aircraft and develop eVTOL versions from the original light aircraft. The resulting aircraft is not only an optimized layout but one where the stability of the eVTOL tilt-wing aircraft has been guaranteed.

A real-time flight simulation tool is proposed using a virtual reality head-mounted display (VR-HMD) for remotely piloted airships operating in beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) conditions. In particular, the VR-HMD was developed for stratospheric airships flying at low/high altitudes. The proposed flight simulation tool uses the corresponding aerodynamics characteristics of the airship, the buoyancy effect, mass balance, added mass, propulsion contributions and ground reactions in the FlightGear Flight Simulator (FGFS). The VR headset was connected to the FGFS along with the radio controller containing the real-time orientation/state of each button, which is also simulated to provide better situational awareness, and a head-up display (HUD) that was developed to provide the required flight data. In this work, a system was developed to connect the FGFS and the VR-capable graphics engine Unity to a PC and a wireless VR-HMD in real time with minimal lag between data transmission… 

A system and method for remote control of a mobile device is provided herein. The system includes a primary receiver for providing primary command and control of the mobile device; a secondary receiver for providing secondary command and control of the mobile device; the mobile device configured to respond to command and control signals sent by any of the primary receiver and the secondary receiver; and a relay platform for relaying the command and control signals throughout the system. The primary receiver may include an extended reality component.

In considering aircraft design, it is very important to effectively size the tail configuration for stability and control. Multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) focuses on the use of numerical optimization in the design of systems with multiple subsystems or disciplines of consideration. However, MDO uses deterministic calculations, and does not consider the uncertainties that arise from the employed analyses, including errors due to linearization and simplification. For problems with inadequate input data, the possibility-based design optimization (PBDO) scheme can be implemented in its stead to achieve reliable designs using membership functions for epistemic uncertainties. A multidisciplinary, possibilistic approach is presented to define the sizing of the empennage configuration of a twin-engine propeller-driven aircraft by changing shape parameters while satisfying the design requirements given the tailless aircraft configuration, the flight conditions, and various uncertainties. The corresponding disciplines are aerodynamics, stability and control, propulsion and weight and balance... 

An engineering approach is presented to analyse the asymmetric blade thrust effect with the help of analytical and semi-empirical methods. It is shown that the contribution of the asymmetric blade thrust effect in the lateral-directional stability of multi-engine propeller-driven aircraft is significant particularly in critical flight conditions with one engine out of service. Also, in some cases where the engines are rotating in one direction, the asymmetric blade effect has substantial effects on the handling qualities of the aircraft even in normal flight conditions. Overall, due to the significant contribution of this phenomenon in the lateral-directional stability of propeller-driven airplanes, it is important to consider it in the design of the vertical stabilizer and rudder. The resulting analytical method has been used to determine the vertical tail incident angle and desired rudder deflection in accordance with the most critical flight …

This paper computationally explores the optical response of various designs of one-dimensional photonic crystal optical filters comprised of alternating layers of dense zirconia and zirconia aerogel. COMSOL Multiphysics software is used to assess the optical characteristics of the filters. The performance of the filters within a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) system with a blackbody emitter and GaSb PV cell is investigated using two different methods including an ideal case wherein the emitter and PV cell are infinite parallel planes and the Monte Carlo ray-tracing method (MCM) with finite areas of its components. Results show that the optimized filter structure is comprised of two stacks of 5 bilayers with different peak positions stacked to form a single structure. When the optimized filter is used in the ideal TPV configuration, a spectral efficiency of 46%, a system efficiency of 33%, and a power density of 8.5 W/cm2 are … 

The proposed semi-empirical Multidisciplinary Analysis Program for Light Aircraft “MAPLA” is particularly developed for the analysis of light, general aviation, propellerdriven, airplanes with a future perspective for the design of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) air vehicles. MAPLA is developed in MATLAB and includes four primary disciplines for analysis: Aerodynamics, Propulsion, Performance and Stability and Control. Specialized for light, single-and twinengine propeller-driven airplanes, available state-of-the-art analytical procedures and design data collections have been combined and modified in a unique compatible method and automated in MAPLA. The proposed multidisciplinary aircraft analysis platform is developed to be used for several objectives and aims to enhance the light aircraft design and development, flight tests and flight plan optimization. It is also a good source for educational purposes.

Here, a real-time desktop flight simulator has been developed for the stratospheric airships where beyond the line-of-sight (BLOS) operations are of interest. The proposed stratospheric airship flight simulator (SAFSim) is important to train pilots and increase situational awareness. SAFSim is developed using the FlightGear flight simulator such that it is scalable and low cost. Here, the simulator architecture is described and its application is presented. The flight simulator will allow pilots to accomplish a sizeable portion of real flight tests with the same data transmission techniques in a simulated environment. The main focus is to simulate the flight environment, flight control systems and provide the necessary symbology and data for the pilot to better understand the stratospheric airship performance and operations at high altitudes. SAFsim has been developed as a modular platform to allow further development of the simulator and different kinds and scales of aircraft simulation in the future...

High temperature solar receivers can convert concentrated solar power to heat to drive chemical production or mechanical cycles to produce electricity. Transparent windows with selective coatings that reflect thermal radiation can be used to cover receivers to improve their efficiency. However, in parabolic dish concentrators (PDC) these windows can reflect or absorb incoming solar radiation, and may actually reduce the efficiency and power output from PDC receivers. In this work numerical analysis shows that one-dimensional transparent photonic crystal heat mirrors (TPCHMs), which have the form of a modified dielectric mirror, can be designed to be highly transmissive to solar radiation but highly reflective towards thermal radiation. Results show that TPCHMs can be designed to provide significant enhancements to PDC receiver efficiencies operating at lower solar concentration ratios. Specifically, numerical …

Microalgae has potential for large-scale biofuel production and CO2 remediation, however its growth is energy intensive and easily hindered by contamination, unsuitable conditions, and photosaturation. To mitigate these problems the solar irradiance can be partitioned into photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and photosynthetically inactive radiation (non-PAR). The PAR can be used for algae growth in a photobioreactor under controlled conditions. The non-PAR can be used to generate electricity in photovoltaic (PV) cells to power the photobioreactor. We present numerical analysis of a luminescent solar spectrum splitter (SSS) that partitions the solar irradiance into PAR and non-PAR to simultaneously power algae cultivation systems and PV cells, respectively. The SSS directs non-PAR to PV cells with emission losses of 6%, and an optical efficiency of 73%. Furthermore, the Shockley-Queisser efficiency …

Herein, the design optimization of multi-objective controllers for the lateral–directional motion using proportional–integral–derivative controllers for a twin-engine, propeller-driven airplane is presented. The design optimization has been accomplished using the genetic algorithm and the main goal was to enhance the handling quality of the aircraft. The proportional–integral–derivative controllers have been designed such that not only the stability of the lateral–directional motion was satisfied but also the optimum result in longitudinal trim condition was achieved through genetic algorithm. Using genetic algorithm optimization, the handling quality was improved and placed in level 1 from level 2 for the proposed aircraft. A comprehensive sensitivity analysis to different velocities, altitudes and centre of mass positions is presented. Also, the performance of the genetic algorithm has been compared to the case where the …

Numerical calculations are performed to determine the potential of using one-dimensional transparent photonic crystal heat mirrors (TPCHMs) as transparent coatings for solar receivers. At relatively low operating temperatures of 500 K, the TPCHMs investigated herein do not provide a significant advantage over conventional transparent heat mirrors that are made using transparent conducting oxide films. However, the results show that TPCHMs can enhance the performance of transparent solar receiver covers at higher operating temperatures. At 1000 K, the amount of radiation reflected by a transparent cover back to the receiver can be increased from 40.4% to 60.0%, without compromising the transmittance of solar radiation through the cover, by using a TPCHM in the place of a conventional transparent mirror with a In2O3:Sn film. For a receiver operating temperature of 1500 K, the amount of radiation reflected back to the receiver can be increased from 25.7% for a cover that is coated with a In2O3:Sn film to 57.6% for a cover with a TPCHM. The TPCHM that is presented in this work might be useful for high-temperature applications where high-performance is required over a relatively small area, such as the cover for evacuated receivers or volumetric receivers in Sterling engines.

Herein the design of transparent heat mirrors for enhanced solar thermal applications is presented. Dielectric mirrors are considered to function as infrared mirrors that reduce heat losses in the receiver of solar concentrators. The alternating layers have been designed to selectively reflect light strongly over the infrared spectral region while being highly transmissive towards solar irradiance. This is achieved by designing the interfaces between the high- and low-index films within the dielectric mirror to have a graded refractive index profile. Three different graded index profiles are considered including: 1. a linear index variation, 2. a cubic index variation and 3. a quintic index variation. The effects of altering the dielectric mirror parameters on its performance are investigated. Accordingly, the sensitivity of the transmittance and reflectance spectra of the dielectric mirror towards its number of layers, resolution of the refractive index profiles, refractive index, number of stacked dielectric mirrors, absorption, and incident angle of the incoming light is analyzed. Results show that a single stack infrared dielectric mirror coated on top of the receiver of a solar concentrator system operating at 500 K can increase its power electric generation by more than 60 % and using a triple stack design can increase the power by more than 100 %. Furthermore, considering a typical Dish-Sterling system operating at a temperature of T=1000 K, the electricity generated can be increased by ~ 30 % by coating the receiver within the system with the transparent heat mirrors designed in this work.

This study is intended to introduce an enhanced semi-empirical method for estimation of longitudinal and lateral-directional stability and control derivatives in the preliminary design phase of light airplanes. Specialised for light, single or twin propeller-driven airplanes, available state-of-the-art analytical procedures and design data compendia are combined and modified in a unique compatible method, and automated in NAMAYEH software. In the present study, modified procedures and the software structure are presented. Afterwards, the proposed method is applied to a four-place, low wing, single-engine, propeller-driven general aviation airplane. In order to validate the proposed method, the estimated aerodynamic characteristics are compared with the wind tunnel test data as well as DATCOM and VLM-based method estimations. The results indicate that the proposed method is able to predict the aerodynamic …

Herein we present the design of infrared mirror coatings for the enhanced performance of incandescent lighting. We consider single and stacked dielectric mirrors comprised of alternating layers of TCO and SiO2 nanoparticle films to function as infrared mirrors that reduce heat losses in incandescent lights. In this work, thin-film theory was employed to develop MATLAB code that calculates the reflectance and transmittance spectra of dielectric mirrors. In order to validate the MATLAB code, we compared our results to experimental results reported in the literature as well as results calculated using COMSOL Multiphysics software. Our results show that an infrared dielectric mirror coated onto the glass bulb of an incandescent light can increase its efficiency by ~32 %. However, stacked dielectric mirror coatings prevent a significant portion of visible light from transmitting through the glass bulb, and consequently decrease the efficiency of incandescent lights by ~46 %.