Research Express@NCKU - News Release
Research Express@NCKU Volume 11 Issue 3 - October 30, 2009 [ http://research.ncku.edu.tw/re/news/e/20091030/1.html ] NCKU Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Successfully Completed Its Maiden Voyage NCKU Press Center
The Remotely Piloted Vehicle & Micro Satellite Research Laboratory (RMRL) led by Prof. Fei-Bin Hsiao (蕭飛賓) from Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan, built the Surveillance, Watch, Autonomous and Navigation Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (Swan UAV) that successfully completed its first test-flight circling Dunggang Township and Liuchiu Island of Pingtung County, a 16-km flight range, in 2005. After that, the Spoonbill Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (Spoonbill UAV) built in this April successfully finished its maiden voyage to fly across Taiwan Straight to Penghu with a flight range of 92 km on the morning of October 20th, 2009. Spoonbill UAV took off at 9:25 am from salt field at Cigu Township of Tainan County, over Taiwan Strait straight to Dongji Island of Penghu County, and landed back at 10:17 am to complete its maiden voyage of 92 km with an average ground speed of 100 km/h. During this test flight, Spoonbill UAV survived itself in travelling over out of radio contact.
NCKU President, Academician Michael Ming-Chiao Lai (賴明詔), commented the great performance of the RMRL that it is not only the success of NCKU but also the pride of Taiwan. It is also an important achievement in Asia. The technology of NCKU UAV is not only the top of Taiwan, and also the best of Asia. The RMRL was established in 1985. They insisted on the development of UAV technology to the satellite links and remote control with outstanding performance and achievement.
There exist several technological advancements from Swan UAV to Spoonbill. First of all, compared with the size of Swan UAV, Spoonbill UAV is larger and measured at 2.2 m long, 3.7 m wide, and 0.9 m high. Engine of Swan UAV is arranged in Puller Engine Configuration, while Spoonbill UAV has a Pusher Engine Configuration, in which engine exhaust would not interfere with videotaping of on-board aerial camera. Second, Swan' s empennage is in a V-shape, while Spoonbill has inverted-U type of empennage that provides better aerial stability of aircraft and flight controllability. Lastly, fuel is different. Swan UAV is powered with methanol, while Spoonbill burned gasoline.
The onboard systems of the Spoonbill UAV include (1) attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) for aircraft roll, pitch and yaw angle acquisition; (2) airspeed sensor for airspeed acquisition; (3) altimeter for altitude acquisition; (4) global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver for aircraft navigation; (5) wireless module for wireless data link between the aircraft and the ground control station (GCS); (6) onboard aviation computer that executes the automatic flight algorithm; (7) remote control module for ground pilot manual control for takeoff/landing/emergencies; (8) onboard surveillance camera that
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takes aerial videos/images; and (9) video transmitter that transmit onboard video to the GCS in real time.
There are nine students from RMRL and one pilot joining this test-flight. They are Mr. Woei-Leong Chan (陳偉良), Mr. Chi-Seng Lee (李志升), Mr. Ying-Chih Lai (賴盈誌), Mr. Chien-Hong Lin (林建宏), Mr. Yi-Ren Ting (丁繹仁), Mr. Chih-Hao Hu (胡志豪), Mr. Bo-Tsang Chen (陳柏蒼), Mr. Chun-Chao Juang (莊竣超), Chun-Chih Chen (陳俊志), Mr. Yi Teng (鄧一) and the pilot - Mr. Bo-Fu Chen (陳寶福).
Prof. Hsiao (蕭飛賓) commented that Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System (UAVS) included aerial vehicle and CGS with transmitting data by wireless communication. Generally speaking, UAV mostly is a vehicle without any onboard staff and with high autonomy in advanced planning or half-way changeable flight schedule. GCS staff can radio instructions to change the flight of UAV at navigation points carrying out its mandate by GCS real-time monitoring of instruction or watching the flight vehicle dynamics of the images contained in a payload carrying real-time video.
About The Remotely Piloted Vehicle & Micro Satellite Research Laboratory (RMRL):
RMRL was established in 1985 for UAVS research from Aerodynamic Design and Functional Payload Test to whole-system integrating test-flight with a series of technology in "beyond visual range" (BVR) automatic flight, ground target tracking, video transmitter and other advanced continuous innovations. Their successful work on Spoonbill UAV is not only marking a new era of aeronautics and astronautics in NCKU, but also setting a new milestone in Taiwan.
RMRL has built many aerial vehicles and finished prototype designs, such as an aircraft in conventional configuration (RX1-4), a twin fuselage Aero 2000, a high wing Thorn Bird, a joint-wing (JW-1), a highly stable Falcon-2, and airframe that has a payload of 15 kg (White Base). Moreover, their research outcomes have been successfully applied in many fields, such as aerophotography over "Salt Mountain" in Cigu salt field, vegetation area of Puli, Tainan Canal, NCKU campus and NCKU Activities of Aerospace Science and Technology Research Center (ASTRC), as well as transmission of CCD real-time images, GPS-guided aviation and so on.
After 2003, RMRL began to focus on BVR automatic
flight of UAV. Swan UAV was born with these fruitful research outcomes. It integrated the past experience and technologies into a complete cost- bearable laboratory platform. Swan UAV is mainly driven by a two-axes servo mechanism with a on- board CCD camera sending instant images back to staff at ground control station. Swan UAV completed its first BVR test-flight in July 2005 by circling Dunggang Township and Liuchiu Island of Pingtung County- a 16-km flight range. This flight certainly proved a successful integration of avionics, aviation guidance and mechanics on Swan UAV.
In 2006, RMRL added two more research projects which are Spoonbill UAV and H-LING Unmanned Helicopter (Rotary Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). Spoonbill UAV is designed with built-in space and aerodynamic shape, on-board avionics to PC/104 as the core, carrying AHRS, GPS, airspeed sensor and
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altimeter as the navigation control for autonomous flight to analyze. All components are integrated to a UAV in 60% reduced scale for ground test before the real maiden flight. These flight tests and analysis served as an important basis of a full-size Spoonbill with wingspan of 3.5 m in design modification and production. Full-size Spoonbill UAV characterized as a lower fuel consumption but with a higher payload capability was capable of longer range and longer time BVA flight. Project on H-LING Unmanned Helicopter started to focus on autonomous hovering and image track, and then establish flight-testing and system identification. H-LING Unmanned Helicopter system also included GCS establishment and onboard optical payload development.
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Research Express@NCKU Volume 11 Issue 3 - October 30, 2009 [ http://research.ncku.edu.tw/re/news/e/20091030/2.html ] NCKU Signed a Collaborative Agreement with Taiwan Nitride Material Inc. NCKU Press Center
[Tainan, TAIWAN]
Prof. Hwung-Hweng Hwung (黃煌輝), the Senior Executive Vice President of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan, on behalf of NCKU, signed a joint venture agreement with a privately owned Taiwan Nitride Material Inc. led by its chairman Mr. H.H. Chang (張鴻灝), for the production of aluminum nitride (AlN). Both parties agreed to invest a total of NT $ 30 million (US$ 932,000) for research and development of AlN, a semiconductor material widely used for heat radiation and insulation in microelectronics and optoelectronics. Prof. Hwung-Hweng Hwung (黃煌輝), the SEVP of NCKU (right) Mr. H.H. Chang (張鴻灝), chairman of Taiwan NCKU will have a share right of 18% resulted Nitride Material Inc. (left) from technique transfer and expect to have a revenue of at least NT$ 100 million (US$ 3.1 million) over the next ten years. The AlN production technique was developed by Prof. Shyan-Lung Chung (鍾賢龍) of the NCKU Department of Chemical Engineering under the support from National Science Council (NSC) with an umbrella project, "A Study of Interdisciplinary Platform for New Technology Commercialization, Academic-Enterprise Collaboration, and Entrepreneurship", supervised by the principal investigator - NCKU SEVP Hwung- Hweng Hwung. This agreement is the first joint venture in aluminum nitride production in Taiwan and certainly created a new way of the commercialization in the cross field of new technologies.
The academia-industry collaboration is essential to promote industrial development and innovation of our society. However, most universities in Taiwan emphasized the mode of academia-industry collaboration in technology transfer in the past few years, which often leads to a failure since no continuous R&D creation has been put in from university. However, the new mode of academia-industry collaboration has been reflected on the NSC-sponsored project, "A Study of Interdisciplinary Platform for New Technology Commercialization, Academic-Enterprise Collaboration, and Entrepreneurship", led by NCKU SEVP Hwung. This new mode is to establish technical, marketing, producing and financial analysis actively, to recruit the employees with competence and to raise enough capital to realize creative and technical commercialization. That is, academia and industry will be close partners even after signing the agreement and finishing technology transfer. Prof. Hwung (黃煌輝) also expects to make public announcement soon on another joint venture, under this project, in production of aquaculture oral bacterial vaccine formulations and copper resources recycling industry for the next 6 months.
"I have a wish. I hope to develop a product in my homeland to strengthen the international
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competitiveness of local industry of my homeland. Now it is the time for our earth with an emphasis on energy conservation and less carbon emission. Light emitting diode (LED) provides a right solution to it. That is, LED lighting is replacing iridescent bulbs. However, the life of LED is still of grave concern resulted from overheating of the device. I really appreciated the effort done by Prof. Shyan-Lung Chung (鍾賢龍) on development of AlN products that could solve this problem," said Mr. Chang, chairman of Taiwan Nitride Material Inc.
"In addition, Taiwan is known for its volume production of LED. The coverage and luminescence intensity in LED lighting is increasing, and backlight modules for LCD displays, made by LED, is prevailing. Moreover, AlN just solved the problem in heat dissipation, frequently encountered in LED devices and the main cause of failure to such devices, especially in lighting and large-size TV with higher energy efficiency and less carbon emission. It also helps enhance the competitive advantage of Taiwan's high-power LED lighting, such as street lamps and backlight module industry. I hope this is a beginning for us as becoming NCKU’s strategic partners, and there will be more collaborative opportunities with each other in the future," said Mr. Chang, chairman of Taiwan Nitride Material Inc.
Prof. SL Chung from NCKU Chemical Engineering Department has been dedicated to researches on AlN for many years. Prof. Chung has developed different techniques, for example, sintering and composite materials, in efficient production of AlN. There have been a number of manufacturers in close cooperation with Prof. Chung’s laboratory in order to develop or to commission test in AlN downstream products. AlN products are becoming more and more popular, as its production cost is reduced with these innovative inventions by Prof. SL Chung. Even more, these innovative inventions have been protected under various issued patents and expect to generate high revenue.
This cooperation project is for the first time from technology development, technology transfer to technology commercialization, and mass production is done by the same research team. It can promote the continuous technological development and continuously mass production and product testing by the newly-established company to shorten the technology development schedule, but also to ensure that technology development is suitable for the demand of business industry and customers.
About the project: A Study of Interdisciplinary Platform for New Technology Commercialization, Academic-Enterprise Collaboration, and Entrepreneurship
The main objective of this project, "A Study of Interdisciplinary Platform for New Technology Commercialization, Academic-Enterprise Collaboration, and Entrepreneurship", led by NCKU SEVP Hwung is to integrate the related sources of academia-industry, including the NCKU Research and Service Headquarter (RSH) and the NCKU Technology Licensing and Business Incubation Center (TLBIC). They also integrated six innovative sub-projects to cooperate with industry actively and to drive incubation of novel invention, to give balance of capital and innovative group planning and to establish a new company to realize the commercialization of creative technology. These six project are "aquaculture oral bacterial vaccine formulations research sub-research project", "health development of Chinese herbal medicine research project", "copper loop resource industries sub-research project", "biosurfactant products sub-research project", "aluminum nitride production and development of innovative technologies sub-research project" and "aluminum nitride electrical substrates metallization sub- research project".
Innovative technological commercialization platform is aimed to establish a new company from
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technological development to innovative incubation as a series of service differed from the past academic innovation which is follow-up the industry market development and operational management by technology transfer. However, it is easy to break down the project due to technical fail-embracing in promoting the process of convergence.
The technological value evaluation of innovative technologies in sub-projects of "A Study of Interdisciplinary Platform for New Technology Commercialization, Academic-Enterprise Collaboration, and Entrepreneurship" will come with a relevant market demand, marketing and manufacturing feasibility and cost-benefit assessment. They will invite manufacturers to participate closely, to send technical members with the evaluation of various innovative technologies in the process developmental feasibility and the technology in mass production of the prototype development. They will set up an academia-industry collaborative platform after technology development is mature; and then plan the management team together, develop investment feasibility operating projects, raise funds, and build up the factories and technology commercialization.
About Aluminum nitride (AlN)
Aluminum nitride (AlN) is a nitride of aluminum. Its wurtzite phase (w-AlN) is a wide band gap (6.2 eV) semiconductor material, giving it potential application for deep ultraviolet optoelectronics. AlN was first synthesized in 1877 but it was not until the mid 1980s that its potential for application in microelectronics spurred development of high quality commercially viable material.
AlN is synthesized by carbothermal reduction of alumina or by direct nitridation of aluminum. It has a density of 3.26 g/cm3 and although it does not melt, it dissociates above 2500°C at atmospheric pressure. The material is covalently bonded and is resistant to sintering without the assistance of liquid forming additives. Typically oxides such as Y2O3 or CaO allow sintering to be achieved at temperatures between 1600 ~ 1900°C.
Aluminum nitride is stable at high temperatures in inert atmospheres and melts at 2800 °C. In a vacuum, AlN decomposes at ca. 1800 °C. In the air, surface oxidation occurs above 700°C, and even at room temperature, surface oxide layers of 5 ~ 10 nm have been detected. This oxide layer protects the material up to 1370°C. Above this temperature bulk oxidation occurs. Aluminum nitride is stable in hydrogen and carbon dioxide atmospheres up to 980°C.
The material dissolves slowly in mineral acids through grain boundary attack, and in strong alkalies through attack on the aluminum nitride grains. The material hydrolyzes slowly in water. Aluminum nitride is resistant to attack from most molten salts, including chlorides and cryolite.
AlN is synthesized by the carbothermal reduction of alumina or by direct nitridation of aluminum. The use of sintering aids and hot pressing is required to produce a dense technical grade material. Metallization methods are available to allow AlN to be used in electronics applications similar to those of alumina and BeO.
Currently there is much research into developing light-emitting diodes to operate in the ultraviolet using the gallium nitride based semiconductors and, using the alloy aluminum gallium nitride, wavelengths as short as 250 nm have been achieved. In May 2006 an inefficient AlN LED emission at 210 nm was reported.
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Among the applications of AlN are opto-electronics, dielectric layers in optical storage media, electronic substrates, and chip carriers where high thermal conductivity is essential, military applications, as a crucible to grow crystals of gallium arsenide, steel and semiconductor manufacturing.
Epitaxially grown thin film crystalline aluminum nitride is also used for surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors deposited on silicon wafers because of the AlN's piezoelectric properties. One application is an RF filter used in mobile phones called a thin film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR). This is a MEMS device that uses aluminum nitride sandwiched between two metal layers.
The most remarkable property exhibited by AlN is its high thermal conductivity - in ceramic materials second only to beryllia. At moderate temperatures (circa 200°C) its thermal conductivity exceeds that of copper. This high conductivity coupled with high volume resistivity and dielectric strength leads to its application as substrates and packaging for high power or high-density assemblies of microelectronic components. One of the controlling factors which limit the density of packing of electronic components is the need to dissipate heat arising from ohmic losses and maintain the components within their operating temperature range. Substrates made from AlN provide more efficient cooling than conventional and other ceramic substrates, hence their use as chip carriers and heat sinks.
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