DCE (DTU) students win car mileage race

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4912482.cms[/url]

DCE (DTU) students win car mileage race

NEW DELHI: An undergraduate team of Delhi Technological University (DTU) bagged the trophy for the best new team at a car marathon recently held in Finland. The competition Finnish Supermileage Marathon held on August 15-16 saw the participation of teams from over 20 countries.

Besides the best new team award, the interdisciplinary undergraduate team of DTU secured second position in technical round in the open class category. The team comprising Abhinav Jain, Ambrish Verma, Ishant Dudhwal, Kancharla VSR Hareen and Balasubramaniam Viswanathan designed a hyper-mileage vehicle by optimizing its aerodynamic design, utilizing carbon fibre for body construction and further cutting down the car's weight by incorporating new materials and systems. The vehicle is powered by a 45cc petrol internal combustion engine capable of providing the necessary torque and enabling the vehicle to achieve a mileage of 224 miles/gallon (British gallon).

Earlier, Delhi College of Engineering's supermileage vehicle had received `The Best Aero-Dynamic Design Award' in an international competition held at Michigan, US. This time the team embarked upon the use of composite carbon fibre for the vehicle body in addition to improving fuel efficiency of the vehicle by significant drag-reduction achieved by modelling and simulation. "Our eyes are on achieving quantum jump in fuel efficiency, while at the same time retaining the aesthetic and aerodynamics of the vehicle so that tomorrow's automobile could achieve the target of near-zero pollution levels,'' said PB Sharma, vice-chancellor, DTU

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Delhi undergrads bag Rs.73,272 with unmanned aircraft

http://www.eetindia.co.in/ART_8800581782_1800001_NT_67ad6fb0.HTM

http://www.defence.pk/forums/india-defence/29078-uav-developed-delhi-college-engineering-wins-prize-us-beats-mit-cornell.html

A team of 10 second-year undergraduate students from various branches of Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) have won Rs.73,272.20 ($1,500) and Director's award for the best team effort for demonstrating a successful flight of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at the 2009 Association of Unmanned Vehicles System International (AUVSI) Student Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) competition.

The 2009 Team DCE UAS, guided by professor P.B. Sharma (also the director of the institute), assistant professor D.S. Nagesh and lecturer N.S. Raghava, developed a fixed-wing UAV.

The aircraft used Sig Rascal 110.

Inside the UAV
The UAV has a basic inertial measurement unit from Crossbow Inc., which is responsible for the measurement of the angular rate of turn, accelerations and the magnetic field strength along the thee axes, explained team captain Rochak Chadha. The UAV integrates a GPS along with dynamic and static pressure sensors to determine airspeed and altitude, respectively. “The magnetometers on this unit were not working perfectly, so we purchased another three-axis magneto from PNI Corp.,” said Chadha.

The data from the sensors reports to a single board computer (SBC) by Technologic Systems running Linux on an ARM 9 processor at 500MHz over an RS-232 link.

The SBC has a six-state extended Kalman filter for computing the roll, pitch and yaw as well as the position, speed and altitude of the UAV, delivering at 50Hz. The SBC sends the data to the ground station over a wireless RS-232 Link at 9,600bps using a Maxstream Xtend RF modem.

The SBC also runs a control algorithm to determine necessary action to bring the aircraft to the steady-state flight condition as well as maintain it on the flight path irrespective of winds or any other disturbance. "The SBC is the brain behind the UAV," Chadha said.

Meanwhile, the imaging system is independent of the SBC. The camera is directly connected to the analogue video downlink system.

“The team used Eagle CAD for PCB design, specifically for power distribution on the boards,” said Chadha, “as well as Matlab and Simulink for the design of UAV control system and automatic target recognition system (image processing tool-box).”
According to computer engineer Arjit Arora, the aim of the project is to develop a UAV with maximum in-house components in order to reduce cost and cut dependence on imported products. He said that one of the most important components of the UAV is an autopilot.

Arora said that a commercial off-the-shelf autopilot is very expensive, varying from Rs.4 lakh for the basic one to Rs.8 lakh for a better version. "Since we have been developing our own autopilot, the cost has been substantially brought down to Rs.1 lakh - Rs.1.5 lakh," he claimed. He added that the software architecture was designed in a way that would allow it to be easily used for all kinds of aircrafts with some slight programming changes.

A small freedom base was built to test the attitude heading and reference system.

"An important feature of our Indigenous Autopilot Program is that we developed the autopilot for that particular aircraft," Chadha said. He explained that all the commercially available autopilots are adjusted by the teams to suit their particular airplane. The team first modelled the aircraft in Simulink and studied its open loop behaviour and based on that designed the autopilot.

The winning team used a commercial autopilot, according to Chadha, while the DCE team designed their own. He believed that one of the major reasons behind the winner's success was that they had many flights and had configured their systems well. "Also, since their autpilots were commercial products, they had everything fitted in a nice and compact manner. We had our various modules working on different boards. So, systems integration in one part where we will improve on this year along with the miniaturisation of our entire autopilot system."

Different goals
Commenting on how the DCE team faired with the competition, Chadha cited experience as a key factor. "The top teams have been participating in the competition in the past years,” he said. “Also, there was a difference in their goals. The other teams were aiming to meet the objectives of the competition rather than develop low-cost UAVs.”

According to Arora, funding of the project was not entirely smooth. He said that working with a tight budget, costs had to be reduced by a big margin over their initial estimate. The college has fully supported and funded the development of the vehicle, and the Department of Science and Technology sponsored the travel expenses. "However, we are looking for a long-term sponsor as the implications of this project can be pretty big. The team is hopeful for a much more positive response from the private sector this year for the further development of the UAV so that it can reach the stage of market readiness," he said.

Chadha: We intend to work on making our system more safe and reliable.

The team now plans to focus mainly on testing and optimisation. "With design work mainly done, we hope to improve our software systems with every flight. System integration will also be a priority since it was one of our major shortcomings. We intend to work on making our system more safe and reliable with the addition of features in the autopilot and ground station," Chadha said.

Industry leaders like Northrop Grumman, IBM, Boeing and Lockheed Martin sponsored the 2009 AUVSI, held from June 17-21, 2009 in Webster Field, Maryland, United States. Most of the teams comprised Ph.D students and undergraduate students working with them.

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DTU ties-up with Lockheed Martin for development of Unmanned Aircraft System

http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/education/2009090232832.htm

Delhi Technological University (DTU), formerly known as Delhi College of Engineering, has entered into a tie-up with internationally renowned Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, United States for the development of Next-Generation Urban Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). The tie-up was announced by Founder Vice Chancellor of DTU, Prof. P. B. Sharma and Dr. Ray O Johnson, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Lockheed Martin Corporation, in the Capital today. Lockheed Martin is a multinational aerospace manufacturer, global security and advanced technology company based in Maryland, US. The corporation will provide grant to the student group of DTU with Lockheed Martin-generated design space to structure their efforts. The team will be required to conduct initial design and then developing a flying prototype.

The planned Urban UAS will be an improvised version of the UAS, called ICARUS, designed by the undergraduate students of DTU headed by Rochak Chadha, IIIrd Year Student of Electronics and Communication Engineering, which recently won ‘Director’s Special Award for the Best Team effort’ at International Aerial Robotics Competition, Georgia, US. It is being re-designed with a view that it can be deployed within an urban environment to provide persistent Intelligence and Strategic Reconnaissance (ISR) capability with a future potential for payload deployment and joint operations with other ground, sea and air assets as well. The UAS shall be capable of controlled flight within the obstruction, electromagnetic and atmospheric (turbulence and wind shear) environment of typical urban environment. The design shall moreover, provide for the lowest possible probability of severe injury to general public resulting from operation.

Delhi Technological University is poised for quantum jump in quality of human resource development, industry sponsored research, technology incubation and product innovations.According to Prof. Sharma (Vice Chancellor (DTU)), “The focus of DTU will be on industry relevant research and innovations. The DTU shall develop itself on the strength of the DCE comprising of its intelligent student community, qualified faculty and its distinguished alumni presence worldwide. The tie-up with Lockheed Martin shall open a new chapter in our University Industry Partnership for cutting edge technologies and innovative product development.”

The new design will have a Gross Take-Off weight of less than 80 lbs from the present 100 lbs. It will have a WENKEL Engine, which provides high efficiency and consumes less fuel. The Dash speed of the vehicle will be increased from present 60 mph to 80 mph by using a 75 cc engine in place of the earlier 24 cc engine. The take-off and landing distance of the improvised UAS will also be reduced from the present 200 ft.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Ray O Johnson said, “Lockheed Martin Corporation will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University and Student Group for work on the Urban UAV Design. The Corporation will provide the broad parameters of the design requirements to be implemented by the students.” While congratulating the students Dr. Johnson also said that, “this partnership is one more example of Lockheed Martin’s long-term commitment to India and the partnerships which we seek to develop and nurture.”

Dr. Johnson was in India to support the Technology Expo organized in Hyderabad where winners’ of the DST-Lockheed Martin India Innovation Growth Programme showcased their technologies. Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2008 sales of $42.7 billion.

The ceremony was witnessed by Shri. R.K. Sharma, Country Head, Lockheed Martin in India, Dr. R.K. Sinha, Dean (Industrial Research and Innovations) and N.S. Raghava faculty adviser DTU and student team UAS of DTU.