In the near future, human astronauts and researchers will travel the distance to Mars to establish various research centers and habitats there, requiring a continuous supply from Earth. In light of the cost and complexity of orchestrating supply missions for each individual research center, and the uneven Martian terrain, a potentially efficient and practical approach for delivering supplies involves first dropping supplies to a single distribution center and then transporting them from there to the locations of interest by air using drones. To evaluate the feasibility and performance of our proposed drone-based Martian supply approach, we are considering both fixed-wing and rotor-wing drones of varying payload capacities, charging times, and ranges based on currently existing aircraft designs in our simulation study.

This project investigates the feasibility of using fuel cells to power electric fuel pumps for use in large rockets. In today’s aerospace industry, largescale, high-efficiency rockets are powered by heavy and costly turbopumps. Indeed, the complexity and weight of a rocket’s turbopump assembly can easily approach 50% of the total rocket cost. To reduce cost, the use of electrical pumps has been found to be practical for some companies. However, the inefficiency of current battery technology continues to inhibit their feasibility for use in larger rocket systems. Fuel cells, if used as a rocket engine’s power supply, could use the propellants themselves to generate the electricity required to power an electric pump. If the fuel cell power output can exceed a certain threshold, this would eliminate the need for heavy, inefficient batteries on smaller class rockets and could potentially replace complex and expensive turbomachinery in larger rockets.

Nearly 40% of the mortality associated with traumatic injuries worldwide is due to uncontrolled or insufficiently controlled hemorrhaging. Fluid resuscitation is vital to effectively control hemorrhaging by restoring lost blood volume. The precise control of fluid dosing is of great importance during resuscitation. This work intends to establish a new fluid resuscitation control algorithm to provide optimal fluid dosing in various hemorrhage scenarios. Current research leverages the results of the optimal control approach to design a model predictive control (MPC) algorithm for fluid resuscitation. The control goal is to reach the target blood volume, which serves as the output for the algorithm. In the next step, the MPC controller will be integrated with a testbed and evaluated against real-world hemorrhage scenarios.

The purpose of this project is to use a jet engine simulator to analyze changes in engine performance under the failure of engine components that impact the performance of the aircraft. We are able to deduce the change in performance when we compare these simulations to a normal flight. When analyzing the performance of these simulations it is necessary to consider all environmental and engine parameters, but namely altitude and thrust are considered. The typical flight duration for a private light jet is about two hours, and this simulation will model a trip from Columbus, OH to Washington D.C. During this flight, we will reach a maximum cruise altitude of twenty-three thousand feet traveling at about two hundred and fifty miles per hour.

Organic field-effect transistors have shown a wide variety of potential uses. Techniques have needed to be developed to study and improve their design. One of the most effective ways to improve these transistors is to work on methods to produce a large amount of these transistors. This allows statistical trends and data to be generated, which specifically allows the transistor’s important aluminum-oxide gate to be perfected. An automated system can be created through the programming of various microcontrollers and motors to automatically create these gate layers. The system can automatically disperse samples of aluminum into a solution while applying a steady voltage. This produces the aluminum-oxide layers through anodization and allows for a large-scale production of transistors for further in-depth study.

Replication Protein A (RPA) is the most abundant single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) binding protein in eukaryotes. RPA is involved in key DNA metabolic processes, including replication and repair, which makes understanding its binding kinetics essential. RPA has six DNA binding domains, each with different affinities for binding to ssDNA. Individual binding domains may disassociate while others are bound, creating a dynamic binding process. Using a single-molecule fluorescence-based assay, we observed a systematic shift in the binding conformation of RPA as a function of salt concentration. The distributions of conformations at all salt concentrations were heterogeneous but were dominated by two states. This suggests certain binding domains dissociate from DNA earlier than others as the salt concentration is increased, highlighting the complicated nature of the RPA-ssDNA interactions.