Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics
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DEPARTMENT OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS Department Update - Summer 2021 Welcome Professors Kirsten Strandjord and Melissa Green The Department of Aerospace En- Green joins the fluid dynamics fac- gineering and Mechanics is pleased ulty as an Associate Professor. Her to welcome Kirsten Strandjord and research focuses on lift generated Melissa Green as the newest addi- by flapping wings, thrust generated tions to the faculty. Both Strandjord by oscillating fins, drag generated by and Green will start in Fall 2021. struts and cables, moments gener- ated by a gust hitting an aircraft Strandjord’s joins the aerospace wing. In all of these scenarios, the systems group as an Assistant Profes- interaction of fluid (air, water) with sor. Her area of research is in Global the surface generates coherent What’s Inside... Positioning System (GPS) and Global structures or motions in the fluid, -of Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ten in the form of vorticity or distinct technology and applications for posi- vortices. These in turn are often p.2 Letter from Department Head tioning, navigation and timing (PNT). associated with pressure and forces Strandjord’s research involves char- on the surface. In some cases, these p.3 Faculty News & Awards acterizing the phenomena of GNSS interactions are desired and need to p.5 Student News & Awards multipath and the effects on position be augmented, while in others, they p.8 Senior Design solutions. She is also active in the need to be mitigated. Fundamental p.10 Student Teams area of urban navigation, where she investigation and visualization of investigates the use of long-term how these interactions play out is p.12 Research evolution (LTE) signals typically used key to predicting future forces or p.14 Congratulations Graduates for communication purposes as sig- moments, and to designing appropri- p.15 Alumni News nals of opportunity for navigation. ate geometries, motion profiles, or control systems to detect p.16 Senior Exit Survey and direct the flow field p.17 Thank You, Donors evolution on-the-fly. College of Science and Engineering Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics DEPARTMENT OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS 1 www.cse.umn.edu/aem FROM THE DEPARTMENT HEAD Dear Friends, Welcome to the summer 2021 edition of the AEM Newsletter. The summer got off to a great start when AEM had an in-person graduation ceremony for the Class of 2021. We are similarly excited for the next academic year, especially with the expectation of seeing students, colleagues and friends in person again. I am pleased that this group will include our two newest faculty members, Kirsten Strandjord and Melissa Green, who will join the Department this fall. Strandjord is an expert in urban GPS, and joins AEM after receiving her Ph.D., and a subsequent post-doc at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Green is an expert in experimental fluid dynamics with a strong dose of computational expertise as well. She received her Ph.D. at Princeton and started her faculty career at Syracuse University. Strandjord and Green bring not only their research expertise to AEM, but also a strong commitment to teaching and undergraduate and graduate mentoring. We also celebrate the achievements of our current faculty. Among these are Professor Maziar Hemati's promotion to Associate Professor with tenure, Professor Demoz Gebre-Egziabher's election as a fellow of the Institute of Navigation, and Professor Ryan Caverly's DEPSCoR award from the Department of Defense. Notable research accomplishments include work on a new NASA initiative by Professors Graham Candler, Tom Schwartzentruber and Joe Nichols, and Professor Richard James's research with Professor Bharat Jalan of CEMS on using phase transformations to develop ground-breaking new materials. AEM students have proven to be equally amazing. Graduate student Jonathan Smith received a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to support his work with Professors Hemati and Candler. Senior Nathan Pharis was awarded an Astronaut Scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. Nathan has also been involved with research with Professors Flaten and Candler. The University of Minnesota Rocket Team won the 2021 Virtual Spaceport America Cup, while the Alphadrone team won the inaugural Minnesota State Collegiate Drone Sports Championship. I am in awe of the performance and resilience of all our faculty, students and staff over the past year. It is a honor to be a part of it. It is also a privilege to be a part of the broader AEM community of alumni and friends. As you can see by the stories in this newsletter, your support allows us to engage in innovative research, support phenomenal students and student teams, and to advance our mission by addressing pressing issues in aerospace engineering through innovative and inclusive research and teaching. Thank you! Be well, Perry Did you know we're on Twitter, Facebook, & Instagram? Visit cse.umn.edu/aem for more information. 2 DEPARTMENT OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS FACULTY Professor Maziar Hemati Promoted We are pleased to report the January 25-28, 2021. Gebre-Egziabher was recognized for promotion of Professor Maziar his contributions in the development and application of Hemati from Assistant Professor multi-sensor integration supporting UAVs and safety of to Associate Professor, effective life applications. beginning of Fall Semester 2021. Election to Fellow recognizes sustained professional Hemati earned his Ph.D. in accomplishments that have significantly contributed to Mechanical Engineering from the advancement of the arts and sciences of Positioning, the University of California, Navigation and/or Timing (PNT) in the areas of technology, Los Angeles in 2013. Prior to management, practice or teaching and a demonstrated joining the university in 2015, Professor Hemati held and sustained impact on the PNT community. Fellows positions including Post-Doctoral Research Associate in the have maintained an observable presence in the ION com- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at munity over the long term, including contributions to ION Princeton University, Graduate Researcher in the programs and publications. Simulations of Flow Physics and Acoustics Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, Advanced Algorithms Gebre-Egziabher has made outstanding contributions Engineer at SySense, Inc., Associate Guidance, Navigation, in the fields of multi-sensor integration and stochastic and Control (GNC) Engineer at the Aerospace Corporation, modelling of their associated error sources. He has incor- and Associate Engineer at Northrop Grumman Marine porated disparate signals from different sensors in order Systems. to allow for graceful degradation and recovery from GNSS interruptions. His work further incorporates detailed Professor Hemati's research aims to develop efficient characterization of errors to support integrity analysis and and reliable strategies for the modeling, analysis, and sophisticated algorithms to extract maximum information control of fluid flows that arise in various engineering from the available data. applications. Hemati's research program combines theory, computation, and experiments to advance the state-of-the- Gebre-Egziabher’s current area of research is in naviga- art in flow control technologies. Current projects include tion, guidance and control of aerospace vehicles, with turbulent transition delay for drag reduction in shear flows; a focus on the application of estimation theory to the multi-fidelity sensor fusion for advanced turbulent flow development of algorithms and design methodologies diagnostics; aerodynamic separation control for enhanced to optimally fuse the information from multiple sensors flight performance and maneuverability; and modeling and and systems. One of the challenges his group addresses control of hypersonic flight systems. when dealing with problems for aerospace applications, or other safety and liability critical operations, is being Professor Demoz Gebre-Egziabher able to precisely quantify (in statistical terms) the level of reliability of the algorithms and systems. Examples of the elected to Institute of Navigation engineering application of his work are in the develop- mental attitude determination and high-accuracy naviga- 2021 Fellow Membership tion systems for spacecraft, aircraft and UAVs as well as evaluation operations of small autonomous aerial vehicles in the national airspace system. His group’s UAV and Small The Institute of Navigation (ION) Satellite Laboratories supports education by bringing real- announced that Professor De- world aerospace development and flight-testing experi- moz Gebre-Egziabher has been ences into undergraduate- and graduate-level courses and elected to Fellow during the ION leading-edge aerospace research. International Technical Meeting (ITM) and Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applica- tions (PTTI) VIRTUAL meeting held DEPARTMENT OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS 3 FACULTY ing. They will make use of mathematical techniques from Ryan Caverly Receives data-driven dynamical systems and robust control theory DEPSCoR Award to perform nonlinear modeling, uncertainty quantifica- tion, and stability analysis. The research team will also in- University of Minnesota (UMN) vestigate an "on the fly" flight testing approach, which will Aerospace Engineering and involve recursively refining the flight model with incoming Mechanics (AEM) Professor data and re-optimizing the flight test