NASA Announces Winners of Challenge to Design Hurricane-Tracking Uncrewed
Aerial Systems
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A team of students from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
(Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg captured first place in NASA's University
Aeronautics Design Challenge with its proposal for the "Gobble Hawk"
high-altitude, long-endurance uncrewed aerial system for tracking and
collecting data on hurricanes.
Image Credit: Virginia Tech
NASA has selected three winning designs solicited to address the
technological limitations of the uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) currently used
to track and collect data on hurricanes.
Engineering teams at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in
Blacksburg, Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the University
of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville were named first- through third-place
winners, respectively, of the agency’s 2013-2014 University Aeronautics
Engineering Design Challenge.
This year’s challenge called on university students, with faculty advisors,
to design a new UAS that can exceed the flight limitations of systems
currently used to track and gather data on hurricanes throughout the Atlantic
Ocean storm season, which runs June 1 to Nov. 30.
“The data gathered by UAS’s is crucial to refining computer models so we
can better predict not just the path of these storms, but also the process of
hurricane formation and growth,” explained Craig Nickol, a NASA aerospace
engineer and technical lead for the contest at the agency's Langley Research
Center in Hampton, Virginia. “This is where current systems fall short.”
Taking second place, the team at Purdue University in West Lafayette,
Indiana, designed the OQ451-5 Trident, a hydrogen-powered UAS capable of
seven days of uninterrupted flight.
Image Credit: Purdue University
Accurate predictions of storm formation and growth require several days of
uninterrupted observations and measurements. However, systems now in use to
gather storm data, similar to the Global Hawk UAS, have a limited flight
endurance of 24 hours per takeoff. Among other stringent criteria, papers
submitted for the challenge had to successfully demonstrate how the team’s
system design would provide persistent five-month aerial coverage over an
area of the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Africa where tropical
depressions can form into hurricanes. Through this five-month period, systems
must be capable of flying non-stop a minimum of seven days.
"The decision process and supporting detail, including cost optimization,
were strengths of the top papers," said aerospace engineer Jason Welstead, a
contest reviewer for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate in
Washington.
The team at the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville secured third
place with its submission, an aircraft dubbed The Big WAHOO, which has a
flight endurance of 7.5 days.
Image Credit: University of Virginia
Virginia Tech’s team of nine university seniors won first place with its
Gobble Hawk, an aerial system consisting of two aircraft, each with a flight
endurance of 7.8 days and using liquid hydrogen as a fuel source. The team
estimated the total cost of the system at $199.5 million for production plus
10 years of operation and maintenance.
Taking second place, Purdue’s OQ451-5 Trident is a hydrogen-powered UAS
capable of seven days of uninterrupted flight over the monitoring area. Its
approximate costs include $310 million for design, $78 million for production
and operating costs of about $17,000 per flight hour.
UVA captured third place with its submission, an aircraft dubbed The Big
WAHOO – a hat-tip to the school’s unofficial nickname and also an acronym
for Worldwide Autonomous Hurricane and Oceanic Observer – has a flight
endurance of 7.5 days. The team estimated the operating life of the aircraft
to be 15 years, with a total lifecycle cost of about $493.7 million.
For more than a decade, NASA’s unique University Aeronautics Engineering
Design Challenge has inspired senior-level engineering students to develop
innovative and cost-effective solutions to real problems faced by the global
aeronautics community. Eight university teams submitted final entries for the
2014 challenge. The three winning teams will receive a cash award through an
education grant and cooperative agreement with Christopher Newport University
in Newport News, Virginia.
For more information on NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate
design challenges and competitions, go to:
http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/design_comp.htm
