| Type of Document |
Master's Thesis |
| Author |
Murtha, Justin Fortna
|
| Author's Email Address |
jmurtha@vt.edu |
| URN |
etd-06262009-141905 |
| Title |
An Evidence Theoretic Approach to Design of Reliable Low-Cost UAVs. |
| Degree |
Master of Science |
| Department |
Aerospace and Ocean Engineering |
| Advisory Committee |
| Advisor Name |
Title |
| Woolsey, Craig A. |
Committee Chair |
| Kochersberger, Kevin Bruce |
Committee Member |
| Marchman, James F. III |
Committee Member |
|
| Keywords |
- Fault Tree Analysis
- Reliability
- SPAARO
- UAV
- Dempster-Shafer Theory
- Evidence Theory
|
| Date of Defense |
2009-06-18 |
| Availability |
unrestricted |
Abstract
Small unmanned aerial vehicles (SUAVs) are plagued by alarmingly high failure rates. Because these systems are small and built at lower cost than full-scale aircraft, high quality components and redundant systems are often eschewed to keep production costs low. This thesis proposes a process to ``design in'' reliability in a cost-effective way. Fault Tree Analysis is used to evaluate a system's (un)reliability and Dempster-Shafer Theory (Evidence Theory) is used to deal with imprecise failure data. Three unique sensitivity analyses highlight the most cost-effective improvement for the system by either spending money to research a component and reduce uncertainty, swap a component for a higher quality alternative, or add redundancy to an existing component. A MATLAB$^{\circledR}$ toolbox has been developed to assist in practical design applications. Finally, a case study illustrates the proposed methods by improving the reliability of a new SUAV design: Virginia Tech's SPAARO UAV.
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| Files |
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Approximate Download Time
(Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
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| 28.8 Modem |
56K Modem |
ISDN (64 Kb) |
ISDN (128 Kb) |
Higher-speed Access |
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JustinMurthaThesisFinal.pdf |
1.41 Mb |
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