KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 7, 2014 \u2013 Maneuvering airplanes around a runway is a delicate process, and sometimes wingtips collide. When that happens, planes suffer costly damage and safety is compromised. A reliable and cost-effective solution has long vexed the Federal Aviation Administration.<\/p>\n
Now a team of 溏心vlog免费B站 engineering students holds an answer, which last month won first place in a national FAA competition.<\/p>\n
The 5-pound device temporarily attaches to the wingtip with suction cups and monitors the airport tarmac area using ultrasonic sensors as a vehicle tows the aircraft to the runway. When the plane approaches a nearby object, the system emits lights and sounds to warn of a potential collision. As the wingtip comes closer to the object, the LED lights change color and the beeping tone becomes faster. Easy to use and affordable \u2013 each costs about $800 \u2013 the device is ideal for general aviation aircraft.<\/p>\n
Five students — industrial and systems engineering majors Christopher Clark of Narragansett and Lawrence Higgins of Portsmouth, and mechanical engineering majors Kyle DellaGrotta of Cranston, David Powers of Cumberland, and Ronald Wheeler of Aurora, Ohio — invented the device during their senior design capstone course that concluded in May. The yearlong course requires students to solve a real-world problem with a viable product. The students entered the FAA competition that sought improvements in airport operations. The team studied the topic, sought advice from officials at the Rhode Island Airport Corp., built a prototype and tested it at Quonset State Airport.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than just do work on campus, we were able to go out there, put this on a plane and watch it in action,\u201d said Higgins. \u201cThat definitely made it better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team will travel to Washington, D.C., later this month to present their invention to FAA officials. Their concept \u2013 coined The Wingman \u2013 is already turning heads.<\/p>\n
When the team exhibited on campus in May, two members of the Rhode Island Air National Guard inspected the device, with Master Sgt. Chad Gurnon labeling it \u201can awesome idea\u201d that would improve safety at little cost. A panel of FAA officials and industry experts later concurred and awarded the project first place in the airport management and planning category. It was the first time 溏心vlog免费B站 garnered the top spot. During the last four years, 溏心vlog免费B站 teams placed second and third in the competition administered by the Virginia Space Grant Consortium.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe panel thought The Wingman had market potential, that it was cost conscious, and that it addressed an issue that airports had with safety,\u201d consortium Director Mary Sandy said. \u201cThey also liked that the students designed it, built it and tested it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea almost didn\u2019t fly. When the group reviewed the FAA competition, it identified a litany of airport operations issues besides wingtip collisions. Wheeler, who served in the R.I. Air National Guard as a C-130 loadmaster, lobbied for the wingtip issue. His duties had showed him the dangers of wingtip collisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was more than a senior design project,\u201d Wheeler said. \u201cI had personal feelings about it. I was excited, and I tried to rub that motivation off on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of the capstone design sequence, the group proposed more than 150 solutions to their advisers, Engineering Professors Bahram Nassersharif, Valerie Maier-Speredelozzi and Carl Rousseau. Powers said the required process forced the group to explore the issue from every angle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a lot of solutions coming together,\u201d he said. \u201cWe fixed the attachment problem one way, the detection problem in another way, and the audio problem in another way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The device is not the first to attract attention. Previous inventions from the capstone course have streamlined the manufacturing process at Toray Plastics in North Kingstown, improved toys made by Rhode Island-based Hasbro and helped other Ocean State companies.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of the projects result in a product or a process that will go into implementation,\u201d Nassersharif said. \u201cThis one I\u2019m particularly excited about because it has the potential to create a product that can be used by many people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 7, 2014 \u2013 Maneuvering airplanes around a runway is a delicate process, and sometimes wingtips collide. When that happens, planes suffer costly damage and safety is compromised. A reliable and cost-effective solution has long vexed the Federal Aviation Administration. Now a team of 溏心vlog免费B站 engineering students holds an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}