Small car driver inflatable restraint system evaluation, volume II - driver air cushion (ACRS) development for 1976 Vega, Valiant, and Chevette subcompact vehicles. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Small car driver inflatable restraint system evaluation. Volume IV - evolving a low mount passenger air cushion restraint system (ACRS) for the Vega subcompact vehicle. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Impact tests of a near-production air cushion restraint. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Vehicle Structures Research, Washington, D.C.

Dynamic response of finite length MAGLEV vehicles subjected to crosswind gusts. Final report.

Transportation Department, Office of Systems Engineering, Washington, D.C.

Impact tests of a near-production air cushion restraint.

Mode of access: Internet.

National Maglev Initiative. Final report.

Mode of access: Internet.

Collision avoidance and accident survivability. Volume 4: Proposed specification. Final report.

Transportation Systems Center, Cambridge, Mass.

Collision avoidance and accident survivability. Volume 1: collision threat. Final report.

Transportation Systems Center, Cambridge, Mass.

IMPORTANCE OF TRACK DESIGN IN GROUND TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS.

The development of the tracks for the Tracked Hovercraft and Bliss Pendair Systems is described. Comment is made on the relative importance of track and suspension costs and of the need for tracks that are weather, vandal and noise proof. It is argued that the beam section required for a suspended air cushion is more likely to fit these requirements than that for beam riding vehicles, either air-cushion or magnetically suspended.

Boarding Control System - for Improved Accessibility to Offshore Wind Turbines

This paper considers the dynamic modelling and motion control of a Surface Effect Ship (SES) for safer transfer of personnel and equipment from vessel to-and-from an offshore wind-turbine. Such a vessel is a key enabling factor for operation and maintenance (O&M) of offshore wind-energy infrastructure. The control system designed is referred to as Boarding Control System (BCS). We investigate the performance of this system for a specific wind-farm service vessel–The Wave Craft. A two-modality vessel model is presented to account for the vessel free motion and motion whilst in contact with a wind-turbine. On a SES, the pressurized air cushion carries the majority of the vessel mass. The control problem considered relates to the actuation of the pressure such that wave-induced vessel motions are minimized. This leads to a safer personnel transfer in developed sea-states than what is possible today. Results for the BCS is presented through simulation and model-scale craft testing.

Boarding control system for improved accessibility to offshore wind turbines: Full-scale testing

This paper considers the dynamic modelling and motion control of a Surface Effect Ship (SES) for safer transfer of personnel and equipment from vessel to-and-from an offshore wind-turbine. The control system designed is referred to as Boarding Control System (BCS). The performance of this system is investigated for a specific wind-farm service vessel—The Wave Craft. On a SES, the pressurized air cushion supports the majority of the weight of the vessel. The control problem considered relates to the actuation of the pressure such that wave-induced vessel motions are minimized. Results are given through simulation, model- and full-scale experimental testing.

Road damage due to dynamic tyre forces measured on a public road

This paper describes a series of tests conducted on a UK trunk road, in which the dynamic tyre forces generated by over 1500 heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) were measured using a load measuring mat containing 144 capacitive strip sensors. The data was used to investigate the relative road damaging potential of the various classes of vehicles, and the degree of spatial repeatability of tyre forces present in a typical highway fleet. Approximately half the vehicles tested were found to contribute to a spatially repeatable pattern of pavement loading. On average, air suspended vehicles were found to generate lower dynamic load coefficients than steel suspended vehicles. However, air suspended vehicles also generated higher mean levels of theoretical road damage (aggregate force) than steel suspended vehicles, indicating that the ranking of suspensions depends on the pavement damage criterion used.

Pneumatic contactless microfeeder design refinement through CFD simulation

A new contactless pneumatic microfeeder based on distributed manipulation is proposed. By cooperation of dynamically programmable microactuators, the part to be conveyed floats over an air cushion and is moved to the desired location with the desired orientation. CFD simulations are used to test the validity of the proposed concept and refine the design of the microactuators

Swordfish: an Autonomous Surface Vehicle for Network Centric Operations

The design and development of the swordfish autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) system is discussed. Swordfish is an ocean capable 4.5 m long catamaran designed for network centric operations (with ocean and air going vehicles and human operators). In the basic configuration, Swordfish is both a survey vehicle and a communications node with gateways for broadband, Wi-Fi and GSM transports and underwater acoustic modems. In another configuration, Swordfish mounts a docking station for the autonomous underwater vehicle Isurus from Porto University. Swordfish has an advanced control architecture for multi-vehicle operations with mixed initiative interactions (human operators are allowed to interact with the control loops).

A situation awareness interface for a bi-wheeled industrial hovercraft: design, development and evaluation

The intention of this thesis is to develop a prototype interface that enables an operator to control a bi-wheeled industrial hovercraft that will work within a fusion power plant if the automation system fails. This fusion power plant is part of the ITER project a conjoint effort of various industrialized countries to develop cleaner sources of energy. The development of the interface prototype will be based on situation awareness concepts, which provide a means to understand how human operators perceive the world around, then process that information and make decisions based on the knowledge that they already have and the projected knowledge of the reactions that will occur in the world in response to the actions the operator makes. Two major situation awareness methods will be used, GDTA as a means to discover the requirements the interface needs to solve, and SAGAT to conduct the evaluation on the three interfaces. This technique can isolate the differences an operator has in situation awareness when presented with relevant information given by each of the three interfaces that were built for this thesis. Where the first interface presents the information within the operator’s focal point of view in a pictorial style, the second interface shows the same information within the same point of view has the first interface but only shows it in a textual manner. While the third interface shows the relevant information in the operator’s peripheral field of view. Also SAGAT can provide insight on the question to know if providing the operator with feed-forward information about the stoppage distances of the bi-wheeled industrial hovercraft has any effect on the operator’s decision making.