Donna Gerren

University of Colorado Boulder | CUB · Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences (AES)

In an undergraduate engineering project conducted through the University of Colorado at Boulder, Aerospace Engineering Department and Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles (RECUV), students developed an autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), to measure near real-time, in situ, three dimensional wind vectors in a pre-defined test...

The problem of designing optimal conflict-free maneuvers for planar multiple aircraft encounters is studied. The maneuvers propose suitable heading changes for aircraft in a cooperative manner. The new mathematical approach provides optimal aircraft trajectories to resolve a wide variety of conflicts, especially in the presence of high-altitude cle...

A study has been conducted to determine the capability to control a very large transport airplane with engine thrust. This study consisted of the design of an 800-passenger airplane with a range of 5000 nautical miles design and evaluation of a flight control system, and design and piloted simulation evaluation of a thrust-only backup flight contro...

A propulsion controlled aircraft (PCA) system has been developed at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California, to provide safe, emergency landing capability should the primary flight control system of the aircraft fail. As a result of the successful PCA work being done at NASA Dryden, this project investigated the pos...

A review of accidents that involved the loss of hydraulic flight control systems serves as an introduction to this project. In each of the accidents--involving transport aircraft such as the DC-10, the C-5A, the L-1011, and the Boeing 747--the flight crew attempted to control the aircraft by means of thrust control. Although these incidents had tra...