The University of Alabama

David Brian Landrum

John Alcorn

Stewart King

Mark Bales

James Bertram Blackmon

Sean Entrekin

An unmanned aerial vehicle docking system can include a docking arm and a docking station. The docking arm can be mounted on the UAV and include a rod with an interface element positioned on top of the rod. The interface element can have charging contacts that are attached to wires that extend down to a charging circuit on the UAV. The docking station can be located separate from the docking arm and have a guidance cone to direct the docking arm to a capture mechanism. Once the interface element is in the capture mechanism, a charging dome is then lowered down onto the top of the interface element to form a circuit between a power source at the docking station and the UAV's battery. Upon completion of the charging process, the charging dome is raised and the capture mechanism releases the interface element of the UAV.

Unmanned aerial vehicle docking system

The present disclosure generally pertains to rocket based combined cycle (RBCC) propulsion units. In one exemplary embodiment, at least one rocket thruster is integrated with a jet engine but is external to the flow path of the jet engine, forming an altitude compensating plug nozzle. Since the rocket thruster is external to such flow path, the rocket flow from the rocket thruster interacts with the jet flow from the jet engine aft of the nozzle of the jet engine. Such interaction occurs without a significant performance penalty in the operation of the jet engine. In fact, it is possible that the interaction of the rocket flow with the jet flow may actually improve the efficiency of the jet engine under some conditions. Moreover, having the rocket thrusters positioned external to the flow path of the jet engine helps to avoid many of the problems plaguing conventional RBCC propulsion units.

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Madison, AL, United States of America

David Brian Landrum