Award Date

12-1-2022

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Mechanical Engineering

First Committee Member

Paul Oh

Second Committee Member

Woosoon Yim

Third Committee Member

Mohamed Trabia

Fourth Committee Member

Brendan Morris

Fifth Committee Member

Pushkin Kachroo

Abstract

This manuscript presents a ”mechanically intelligent” approach to designing a Hosing-Drone for heavy-duty pressure washing. Spraying a hose creates strong reaction forces and torques. Previously demonstrated spraying robots are over-engineered to be very massive with huge inertias. These high inertias ”wash out” the reaction from the spraying. In the proposed approach, the contributions from all observable fluid dynamics, fluid structure interactions, and aerodynamics are studied individually and for the coupled system. Experimental data is collected and fit to dynamic models. These models are used to design a smaller, lighter, more agile vehicle than has been previously demonstrated. An impedance controller with virtual reference model is developed with inspiration from the classic ”hose under flow” fluid dynamics toy problem and ”crane-trolley” control problem. Results from simulation and field testing show proof-of-concept.

Keywords

Multicopter; Physics Modeling; Pressure Flow; Pressure Washing; Robotics; UAS

Disciplines

Aerospace Engineering | Artificial Intelligence and Robotics | Other Physics | Physics | Robotics

File Format

pdf

File Size

12100 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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Available for download on Friday, May 15, 2026


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