Theses

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Publication
MECHANISMS OF ELECTRICAL CONDUCTION IN CNT COMPOSITES AT LOW LOADING VALUES
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2020-06
Earp, Brian C.
Luhrs, Claudia C.
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Electrically conductive epoxy-carbon nanotube (CNT) composites show great promise for use in space applications, potentially offering improved performance with lower mass. While use of fillers, such as CNTs, in resistive polymeric materials to create conductive composites is well-established, this research identified conduction mechanisms for two unique regions, low loading (> ~0.1 wt% CNTs) and extremely low loading (< ~0.1 wt%), of epoxy-CNT composites. Conductivity results in this study, combined with characterization of composite microstructures, provided insights of the different conduction mechanisms and supported identification of methods to improve electrical conductivity. It was found that diverse fabrication and processing parameters affect each loading regime in a different way. Application of elevated currents and/or temperatures, identified properties and performance limits under extreme conditions. While the major research thrust was focused on epoxy composites, concurrent efforts on CNT sheet conductivity were also undertaken. These efforts supported the identification of effective means to attach metallic particles to CNT sheets to increase electrical conductivity. This study contributes to a greater understanding of the electrical properties of CNT composites and highlights the variables that need to be controlled to successfully integrate them into aerospace systems and components.
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MODELING AND SIMULATION OF THE DYNAMICS AND CONTROL OF FLEXIBLE SPACECRAFT STRUCTURES FOR VIBRATIONAL MINIMIZATION
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2022-06
Beck, Jonathan R.
Romano, Marcello
Hudson, Jennifer
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Large flexible spacecraft structures are uniquely susceptible to structural vibrations during orbital maneuvers. These vibrations can interfere with sensors onboard the spacecraft, the spacecraft’s payload, and can lead to the degradation of the structural integrity of the spacecraft over time. In extreme cases, a maneuver may cause vibrations so violent that the spacecraft’s structure is severely damaged or destroyed. One method of controlling the structural vibrations is by applying a specific control trajectory to the onboard maneuvering actuators that, during a maneuver, minimizes the amplitude of the flexible deformation. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the use of optimal control theory in its application to the control of flexible spacecraft structures during orbital maneuvers. Three flexible spacecraft models of increasing complexity, referred to methods one, two, and three, are developed and simulated performing a one degree of freedom (1-DOF) orbital slewing maneuver using the multibody dynamics software Simscape Multibody. Using optimal control theory applied via Pontryagin’sprinciple and the optimal control software DIDO, the control input to the maneuvering actuators is optimized to reduce the amplitude of the flexible body vibrations and deformation generated by the dynamic motion of the spacecraft. Results show that, across all three models, the vibrational amplitude of the flexible structures can be controlled at the cost of increased maneuver time.
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Publication
TIME-OPTIMAL PROXIMITY MANEUVERS OF A SPACECRAFT BETWEEN TWO ARBITRARY RELATIVE STATES
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2021-12
Sevier, Matthew L.
Romano, Marcello
Hudson, Jennifer
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Choon, Stephen Kwok
With space becoming an increasingly congested and contested domain, the ability of spacecraft to perform quick and efficient rendezvous and threat avoidance maneuvers is increasingly important. Spacecraft proximity formation maneuvers require swift calculations of optimal control trajectories, with high accuracy and little room for error. Considering the complex dynamics of spacecraft relative orbits, the development of new analytical methods is critical for cutting-edge space based capabilities. Developing an analytical method that can quickly calculate the minimum time optimal control between two arbitrary states for a fourth-order system is the objective of this thesis. This is achieved by combining two analytical methods and leveraging the capabilities of each to achieve a solution. Both methods will be analyzed, developed, and applied in-depth, and then combined in a new analytical method. This combined method will then be applied to several scenarios, with the results verified and validated against robust but computationally intensive numerical solvers. This method’s capabilities and limitations will then be assessed. The solutions determined analytically by this combined method are calculated faster and more accurately than current numerical methods.
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Publication
INVESTIGATING METHODS TO PRODUCE IN-SITU ALLOYS IN METAL ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2023-06
Kennedy, Nicholas I.
Gunduz, Ibrahim E.
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Curran, Christopher C.
The Department of Defense aims to increase the use of additive manufacturing (AM) in its supply chain to reduce the “deadtime” wait of weeks to months for a part that could be produced in a matter of hours using a metal AM printer. There is a need for improved AM materials to meet the mechanical property standards required for all end-use parts, especially in as-printed form. Dispersion strengthening is a common method to improve properties of metal alloys, but it is challenging to distribute nanoscale additives into metal alloys. This research aimed to determine the feasibility of producing dispersion strengthened aluminum alloys produced in-situ during liquid metal printing. Using the Xerox ElemX LMP system at Naval Postgraduate School, along with the aluminum alloy 4008, glass beads and boron nitride-based particles were introduced into the alloy during processing. The aim was to take advantage of the non-contact nature of the process that uses molten metal in a crucible that allows this approach. The mixtures were jetted into compacts that were characterized to qualitatively determine the particle distributions and microhardness, before and after a T6 heat treatment. The results from these experiments showed that the forces were sufficient to mix the microscale additives in the molten aluminum during the printing process and are likely enough to sufficiently distribute nanoscale particles. This should be further investigated in future research.
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Publication
COHERENT INTERFERENCE AGAINST RADAR ALTITUDE ESTIMATION FOR COUNTER-SUAS APPLICATIONS
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2024-06
Smart, Daniel R.
Romano, Ric
Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)
Jenn, David C.
This thesis examines the effects of coherent interference on the probability of false alarm to a radar receiver. In this work, the term probability of false detection is used. Initially, the probability of false detection is analyzed through simulation. Multiple simulations conducted in Matlab show the relation between increased interference signal power and increased probability of false detection. Then, the technique is tested via a commercial off-the-shelf small unmanned aerial system (sUAS) altimeter. The altimeter is eventually mounted on the sUAS. A signal analyzer captured the altimeter radio frequency (RF) signal. This signal is transferred to a signal generator, which transmits (repeats) the interference signal to the radar altimeter as a coherent interference signal. The output power of the interference is varied to investigate the effect on radar altimeter performance. The sUAS testbed provides versatility in movement and velocities. The results of the experiments conclude that the coherent interference generation scheme described in this work can drastically affect the readings of the altimeter.
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Publication
TRACKING AND CAPTURE OF AN OBJECT USING A ROBOTIC MANIPULATOR
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2022-06
Vincent, Christopher M.
Hudson, Jennifer
Romano, Marcello
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Fernandez, Bautista R.
With the number of aging spacecraft increasing, research into on-orbit robotic servicing has expanded in an effort to extend the service life of these satellites through methods such as refueling, equipment repair, or component replacement. The primary objective of this thesis was to create a program capable of commanding the KINOVA Gen3 robotic manipulator to identify and capture an object with application to on-orbit satellite servicing. The KINOVA Gen3 robotic manipulator possesses seven degrees of freedom and contains a camera mounted above the end effector of the manipulator. Throughout this study, a color recognition algorithm was designed to identify the target object that the manipulator was attempting to grasp. Motion of the arm was simulated using an optimal control solver and 3D animation toolboxes. Finally, a Simulink program was designed and tested to integrate the color recognition subsystem, joint and gripper actuation, and controls for operation by a human-in-the-loop. The control model was successful in its operation and provides a basis for future work involving further automation of the system.
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Publication
SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTATION OF A TWO-BODY HOPPING MANEUVER WITH NASA ASTROBEE
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2021-12
Watanabe, Daniel T.
Romano, Marcello
Hudson, Jennifer
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Kwok-Choon, Stephen
Hopping maneuvers offer a novel approach to propellantless maneuvering of small robotic spacecraft operating in the vicinity of other spacecraft or masses. The ongoing Astrobatics project, using NASA's Astrobee free-flyer as a test platform, seeks to develop a method by which the Astrobee robot may maneuver around the International Space Station (ISS) using only its robotic arm and gripper. This thesis furthers the research by focusing on the third experimental session in the project, which involves a two-body hopping maneuver in which a primary Astrobee will perform a hopping maneuver off of a secondary, passive Astrobee. A MATLAB simulation of the maneuver has been developed to analyze the two-body hopping problem, and the results are compared with experimental maneuvers conducted on the Naval Postgraduate School's POSEIDYN testbed and the NASA Ames granite table laboratory, which concluded with an experiment test activity aboard the ISS. Despite several points in the experiment that can be improved, the data comparison is promising. Magnitude and direction of the launch velocity of the primary Astrobee appear to be correlated to the release angle and are consistent with simulation results. Future work on Astrobatics will likely be able to predict the Astrobee response to variations of the two-body hopping maneuver using simulated predictions.
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Publication
TIME-OPTIMAL SPACECRAFT THREE-AXIS REORIENTATION
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2020-06
Sharp, Alanna M.
Romano, Marcello
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
The Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) of the general time-optimal rest-to-rest reorientation of rigid spacecraft is presented with the novel Time-Impulse parameterization of the PSO (TI-PSO). The PSO is developed first for the triaxial body where the parameters are the control torque switch structure and the impulse times. The optimal solution of each particle is calculated using ordinary differential equations. The same is then achieved and demonstrated for a cylindrically symmetric rigid body. For the case of the spherically symmetric rigid body, the established method of using the parameter-reducing equations and the use of ordinary differential equations is compared with the analytical solution to the problem. Select cases are compared to Inverse Dynamics Particle Swarm Optimization (ID-PSO), which was developed by Spiller et al. as a suboptimal method to solving trajectory optimization problems with attitude maneuvers as their case studies. Analysis results consider the computation time, error rate of the state and final time, and exhaustive search. The TI-PSO, ID-PSO, and the pseudospectral method with GPOPS-II are compared. Last, visualization of the final time results of maneuvers over the entire eigenaxis space are presented as conic projections where the contours are the final times, while the trajectories of the principle axes of individual maneuvers are presented as latitude-longitude plots.
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Publication
DESIGN, INTEGRATION, AND TEST OF A MODULAR SPACECRAFT-BASED ROBOTIC MANIPULATOR LINK
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2014-12
Alvarez, Daniel A.
Romano, Marcello
Wilde, Markus
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
This thesis reports the design, integration, and testing of a modular non-fixed base robotic manipulator link for equipping mobile vehicles (e.g., spacecraft, terrestrial, or sea vehicles). In particular, the developed manipulator link will be used as a test bed for spacecraft-based robotic operations at the NPS Spacecraft Robotics Laboratory. The design of the link is new and unique in that it is completely modular, allowing for reconfiguration of the manipulator or the replacement of links during operations. The wireless link carries all necessary components to command a servomotor and receive torque, velocity, and positional feedback data. In addition, common structural interfaces mean that the link can attach and detach from the robotic base and other links without any changes to the electrical or mechanical architecture of the system. The design and integration process developed in this thesis enable construction of additional links to result in a full multi-link robotic manipulator. The inertial parameters of the integrated prototype link were also experimentally measured. These inertial parameters are necessary and sufficient to model a spacecraft-manipulator system of n links via computer simulation. This thesis provides the foundation of such a simulation by modeling a one-link spacecraft-manipulator system, which was corroborated with experimental data. Construction of future links provides a flexible means by which more complex simulations can be experimentally validated.
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Publication
DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF ON-ORBIT ROBOTIC SPACECRAFT HOPPING MANEUVERS
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2020-12
Chitwood, Jonathan
Romano, Marcello
Kwok-Choon, Stephen
Hudson, Jennifer
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Robotic manipulator arms can be utilized to perform hopping maneuvers in a micro-gravity environment. This capability has several applications for orbital robotic spacecraft. The amount of propellant a spacecraft has to maneuver is generally limited (i.e., non-refuellable). If propellant can be conserved, the operational lifetime of a robotic spacecraft can be extended. Hopping maneuvers can be used as a substitute or complement to traditional propulsive maneuvers. A framework was developed for designing planar hopping maneuvers for robots using manipulator arms containing two to four links with rotary-planar joints. To model the three-dimensional motion of ungrounded robotic spacecraft with single link manipulator arms, equations of motion for a generalized coordinate system were developed using the Lagrangian formulation method. A means of measuring a robotic system’s hopping capability was developed in order to evaluate how the pose and state at the time of release affect the linear momentum and angular momentum of the robotic system during free-flight. The study concludes that robotic hopping maneuvers have potential value to on-orbit robotic spacecraft.
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Publication
ASTROBATICS: OPERATION AND CONTROL OF THE ASTROBEE ROBOTIC FREE-FLYER
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2020-12
Leary, Patrick W.
Romano, Marcello
Hudson, Jennifer
Choon, Stephen Kwok
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
In preparation for future on-orbit testing on the International Space Station (ISS), the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Spacecraft Robotics Laboratory (SRL) demonstrated operation and control of the Astrobee robotic free-flyer both in simulation and experimentation at NASA Ames Research Center. This thesis discusses the continuation of ground testing of the robotic hopping maneuver, a propellantless, robotic manipulator-based mobility approach for orbiting satellites. It also expands the current SRL scope to include motion planning and presents the use of artificial potential field guidance (APFG) to directly control Astrobee’s impellers and stabilize after completing a successful hopping maneuver on the ISS. This thesis additionally serves as a manual for future NPS students to configure NASA’s Astrobee simulator. Following the ISS experimental campaign, generating a model for the robot’s force allocation module and integrating the APFG motion planner are areas of focus for future SRL research.
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CONVEX OPTIMIZATION AND CONTROL OF AGGREGATING AND DISAGGREGATING SPACECRAFT
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2017-12
Pandya, Neehar
Romano, Marcello
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Virgili-Llop, Josep
The work of this thesis develops an algorithm that can calculate optimized control trajectories for a swarm of disaggregated spacecraft. The trajectories were optimized around multiple obstacles using sequential convex programming. A novel approach of combining obstacles was used to ensure the problem remained convex in all circumstances. The MATLAB extension CVX and the solver Interior Point Optimizer (IPOPT) were used to develop the algorithm through MATLAB and C programming languages. A real-time trajectory guidance optimization algorithm was successfully implemented on three disaggregated spacecraft maneuvering around a fixed obstacle in a simulated environment and on a single Floating Spacecraft Simulator in a hardware experiment.
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Publication
DESIGN, INTEGRATION, AND TESTING OF AN AUTONOMOUS MULTI-BODY SPACECRAFT SIMULATOR FOR LOW GRAVITY HOPPING AND GRASPING
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2017-12
Bradstreet, Andrew
Romano, Marcello
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Virgili-Llop, Josep
Mobility around spacecraft and space stations in orbit is vastly different from movement on the Earth’s surface. As autonomous robotic technology continues to advance at a rapid pace and as its use in space proliferates, it becomes increasingly important to explore autonomous robotic mobility approaches. The study of hopping and grasping dynamics will lead to more efficient maneuvering without using propellant (a non-renewable resource in space). Hopping could preclude the necessity of dangerous docking maneuvers between spacecraft and space stations and greatly reduce if not eliminate the use of propellant for mobility. This thesis reports the design, assembly, integration, and testing of several hardware and software components used on the Naval Postgraduate School’s Spacecraft Robotics Laboratory’s ManiSat Spacecraft Simulator and planar low gravity testbed, POSEIDYN. All of the components allowed for the testing of propellantless maneuvering of ManiSat in order to demonstrate basic hopping and capturing dynamics in a low gravity environment. New hardware components include robotic grippers, modular wrist joints, and testbed rails and mounting accessories. New software includes gripper and wrist calibration programs, as well as maneuver controllers and trajectory calculators.
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Publication
ENHANCING THE EFFECTIVE UTILIZATION OF NOISY QUANTUM COMPUTERS THROUGH STREAMLINING ARCHITECTURE AND ALGORITHMIC IMPROVEMENTS
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2024-09
Kukliansky, Alon
Bollmann, Chad A.
Huffmire, Theodore D.
Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)
Quantum computing emerges as a powerful tool for complex calculations, poised to reshape computing by performing tasks beyond the reach of classical systems. Unfortunately, quantum computers exhibit inherent noise from various sources. This dissertation aims to enhance the effective utilization of noisy quantum computers through advances in three layers of the quantum computation stack. The author optimized a quantum neural network for network anomaly detection on current quantum computers, achieving an F1 score of 0.86, surpassing comparable studies. A novel metric, the Certainty Factor, is introduced to analyze noise susceptibility in quantum classifiers and enrich predictions with uncertainty measures. Additionally, the author accelerated parametrized quantum circuit instantiation through the design and implementation of QFactor-Sample, a domain-specific optimization algorithm enabling a 2,000x speedup over popular optimizers. This improvement enhances the tradeoff between runtime and result quality. Lastly, a new mathematical framework was developed for analyzing quantum circuits and error models without relying on Monte Carlo techniques. The author utilized it to provide a detailed error model for various implementations of critical circuits in fault-tolerant quantum computation, demonstrating the framework’s generality, efficiency, and potential contribution to optimizing quantum computer architectures.
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CARBON NANOTUBE ENHANCEMENT FOR MINIATURIZED ION THRUSTERS
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2015-12
Ozereko, Jarrod M.
Grbovic, Dragoslav
Luhrs, Claudia
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Biblarz, Oscar
A significant obstacle in the miniaturization of electrostatic ion thrusters is the bulky systems needed to ionize the propellant. The requirement of strong magnetic fields and/or large applied voltages makes it difficult to accommodate such systems on the smallest class of satellites, yet they would greatly benefit from the addition of propulsion, and the safety of the space environment demands a reliable way to remove these from orbit in a timely manner. The potential ionization improvement of argon using carbon nanotubes grown at the Naval Postgraduate School was investigated, and it was found that up to 54% more current at the same voltage was produced using a screen with nanotubes rather than the blank screen itself. The nanotubes also reduced the activation potential by 3.6%. An attempt to quantify potential thruster performance using the experimental data showed that while similar levels of thrust are expected compared to other miniaturized systems, further improvement in mass utilization is required before this scheme could produce a flight-ready system.
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OPTIMIZING SPACECRAFT ORIENTATION TO ACHIEVE MULTIPLE POINTING REQUIREMENTS
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2025-06
Hayden, Lenhard M.
Lan, Wenschel D.
King, Jeffery T.
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
The Otter spacecraft is a small satellite built and operated by the Naval Postgraduate School that hosts Tui, a payload built by New Zealand’s Defence Science and Technology group, which must be activated and idled many times over a three-orbit experiment cycle. This thesis investigated the possibility of orienting Otter in such a way that it would be able to maintain nadir tracking within a certain degree of error while also facing its largest solar panel array towards the sun to maximize the amount of generated solar power. First, the analysis of Otter’s power budget was conducted throughout the three-orbit experiment cycle to determine if optimization was required to increase the amount of power available. Next, the optimal control problem formulation for this problem, including dynamic functions, path constraints, and a cost function, was performed. The objective of the resulting optimized quaternion history for the three-orbit experiment cycle was to minimize the pointing error between Otter’s solar panel vector and the sun unit vector, thus maximizing solar panel power production. Through solving this problem formulation, it was found that it was possible to produce a feasible quaternion history to achieve this objective. This quaternion history only met three of the required six optimality conditions that qualify the solution as mathematically optimal; however, the attitude solution enables Otter to generate enough additional power to power Tui throughout its experiment.
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Publication
OPTIMIZATION OF A FLUID PRESSURE DROP DEVICE THROUGH ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUES
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2025-12
Sparrow, Andrew N.
Gannon, Anthony J.
Smith, Walter C.
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Ansell, Troy
This study presents a methodology for investigating novel geometries for maximizing fluid pressure drop, leveraging advanced geometric analysis, fluid dynamics simulations, and supervised machine learning (ML) techniques. Among the geometries explored, the geometry of focus was the Tesla valve. Device performance was optimized for differential pressure while avoiding onset to cavitation. Several geometric variables were altered to determine an optimized geometry that met design criteria. A novel design framework was developed to tailor multi-stage Tesla valves (MSTVs) for improved pressure control and cavitation management. Experimental validation yielded a deviation of less than 4% from analytical predictions and achieved an approximate 56% size reduction, emphasizing the methodology’s repeatability and its potential for material and manufacturing cost savings. A restricted-release geometric design that is pending a patent filed in secret, whose details are contained within the confidential supplemental accompanying this document, demonstrated superior performance compared to conventional Tesla valve designs. This configuration achieved enhanced efficiency with tradeoffs, as well as significant size reduction while satisfying all predefined design requirements.
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SCALING DRONE MANUFACTURING THROUGH THE GIGAFACTORY MODEL
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2025-12
Lund, Zechariah M.
Obeng, Peter
Dew, Nicholas
Porchia, Jamie
Department of Defense Management (DDM)
Modern warfare has demonstrated an increasing demand for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that provide critical battlefield advantages. For example, the war in Ukraine has highlighted drones' role in defense operations, demonstrating their ability to enhance situational awareness, conduct reconnaissance, and deliver kinetic effects efficiently. While drones have historically been overlooked by military planners due to perceived operational limitations, their recent success in modern conflicts has solidified their importance. However, the U.S. faces significant challenges in rapidly scaling drone production. Many UAS components rely on foreign supply chains, and the domestic manufacturing infrastructure remains fragmented. To address these issues, companies such as Anduril have pioneered the Gigafactory model—centralized, high-volume production facilities that integrate supply chains to achieve economies of scale and enhance supply chain security. The focus on the Gigafactory model stems from its demonstrated success in industries like electric vehicles and semiconductors, where rapid scaling, cost efficiency, and supply chain control are critical. Applying this model to the defense sector presents a promising pathway to overcome current production and sourcing limitations. This thesis explores the viability of Gigafactories as a model for increasing the domestic production of UAS to meet DoD requirements.
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Publication
MARITIME UAS DETECTION: A MULTI-SENSOR FUSION FRAMEWORK FOR SOF OPERATIONS
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2025-12
Leutermann, Maximilian
Giles, Kathleen B.
Systems Engineering (SE)
Smith, Kevin B.
Maritime Special Operations Forces require passive counter-unmanned aircraft systems (cUAS) capabilities for small vessel operations under emissions control conditions. This research addressed the systems engineering challenge of integrating heterogeneous commercial sensors into a unified, vendor-agnostic detection architecture. A modular fusion framework called the Operational Data Integration Node (ODIN) was developed using plugin-based software architecture to enable rapid integration of radio frequency, electro-optical/infrared, radar, and acoustic sensors from multiple manufacturers. The system was extensively tested at Joint Interagency Field Experimentation 25-4, and Bold Machina 2025; demonstrating successful integration of five sensor types using disparate data protocols within 72 hours. Field testing achieved a greater than 90 percent reduction in operator display clutter, two-second passive-to-active sensor cueing, and continuous operation in Sea State 4 conditions. The research demonstrated expeditionary maintainability through successful field repair of component failures and proved vendor-agnostic architecture feasibility for coalition interoperability.
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Publication
MODELING OPERATIONAL ENERGY AT THE TACTICAL LEVEL
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
2025-12
Kettunen, Kati P.
Schramm, Harrison C.
Nussbaum, Daniel A.
Department of Defense Management (DDM)
The thesis focuses on exploring operational energy at the tactical level. To make these ideas concrete, we study a notional ground unit informed by open-source data. Data is gathered from public sources; the primary sources are the NATO ENSECCOE report, the NPS thesis by Thomas Atkinson on USMC energy usage, and Finnish research on truck fuel consumption in the forest industry. In this thesis, we first develop a conceptual model representing the energy forms and conversions that occur within a ground unit. Next, we present these energy flows as a network, and from there, a linear programming (LP) model is developed. The model represents units’ energy usage in a 24-hour period, and all energy forms are converted to kilowatt-hours (kWh). The LP model is small and tractable, and therefore is able to be instantiated and evaluated in Microsoft Excel, with an objective function that minimizes fuel consumption for electricity production. A key feature of our work is visualization; here, we use the novel approach of Sankey Charts. The model is then applied to several specific use cases. Finally, we explore how the model can be further developed.
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