Our team is rather small and can not design an entire car, but we are savvy and seasoned in the development of automotive design for special vehicles and rovers, as well as beautiful and functional concepts, and scenarios for the operation of complex equipment. At the same time, we are designing a single units and parts, upgrading them later to production and testing stage.
In this project we tried to rethink the approach to the implementation of transportation facilities for meeting or rescuing astonauts, in order to create a beautiful and functional structure. The main criteria were high cross-country ability and overwater performance.
Classic cars of this class also have a 6-wheel AWD system, but our version uses individual hydraulic motors for each wheel, which allows you to conduct accurate adjustment of the output force. Design models for movement on different types of soil with different tilt angles of slopes made it possible to optimize the parameters of hydraulic drives. Each wheel is placed on an independent suspension with hydraulic height adjustment; for driving in the snow the ground clearance reaches 1.3 meters point, and in its lowest position the height of the car fits into a size of 3 meters and can be transported in a cargo plane.
The machine carries a telescopic crane on board, which makes loading through the roof possible. The vehicle is fitted with ramp type rear doors, which form a wide gangway for entering the passenger car unit. For movement on water a hydro jet with maneuvering thruster is used, its motion speed is up to 25 km/h.
Hydrodynamic calculations were performed, a large-scale model of the vehicle body was made and pool tests were carried out.
As part of the complex of vehicles for finding and rescuing astronauts, there is a truck for transporting a space lander. In this work calculations and assessments were carried out in order to check the possibilities to technify the process, where a lander module is loaded onto a vehicle.
Previously, on such vehicles, a lander was loaded into the vehicle body using a side beam with a windlass (it is extended laterally above the side). This option worked well on solid ground.
We have considered a solution that can mechanically capture the lander and load it onto a vehicle, both in ground conditions and afloat.
For that to happen, individual settings of the height adjustable suspension or adjustment of water immersion of the aft part is used. When working on water, retractable side supports with pneumatic outrigger floats are also used.
Wheelsets' condition of railway transport is usually checked during standing time or maintenance operations. Starting movement for a train with a blocked wheel pair or wheel deformation (for example, due to emergency braking) can lead to a serious accident. The situation is also complicated by the fact that such a malfunction can occur right in the process of a train movement.
We have developed and manufactured a prototype system with autonomous sensors that are installed directly on the axle box cover of each wheelset. Such sensors do not require a wired connection - they are united into their own wireless network. Power is provided by the built-in battery, and its recharging takes place during the train movement due to the built-in generator, which receives energy from the rotating wheel.
The result of such a system is the all- wheelsets-status being displayed on the train driver's monitor in real time. As soon as a damage occurs or parameters screening detects a fault, a warning and detailed information about a specific wheel pair will be displayed.
The task of the development was to manufacture the structure of the lifting body of the convertoplane with three engines. The front consoles should have been able to move longitudinally for experiments with control modes when lifting loads and experiments with a change in the thrust vector.
We designed and manufactured the sample for testing. Tilt drives are located inside the airframe, and motor tilt shafts are power elements of cantilevers. The airframe is made of fiberglass, while cantilevers are hybrid - they were made using 3D printing. The size of the body is 2 meters.
The design of the body and the rotary joint of the shafts for the rotary-piston engine were developed according to the customer's concept. The initial datum was the description of the formula from the patent. It was necessary to check the technical feasibility of implementing the design in accordance with this idea and get a mechanical mock-up to demonstrate the concept.
The next stage became a kinematic model of the engine assembly, including the body, shafts with pistons, and a synchronization mechanism.
The customer needed to update the mechanical injector design in order to change the production technology. These elements are mechanical nozzles for supplying combustion chamber with gas mixture. We have developed an updated design and upgraded manufacturing process itself.
To estimate the nozzles' operating capacity, prototypes were made and an operation test was done with exceeding the permissible temperature regime. At this stage, we optimized both design and production technology.
For the final design, we launched the production process,- all the manufactured samples have successfully passed the operational life cycle, which amounts to 20000 hours in work.
The purpose of the study was to determine the most optimal way to deliver a rescue team to a space lander with astronauts at water area (whose landing was scheduled or crashed). The target criteria were time and cost.
In conditions of an unknown landing point (since the moment of a possible accident is also not known) a large water area makes it not cost-effective to attract sea/ocean vessels galore with a helicopter group on them (which are approximately 10 ships, thus, rescuers may arrive in 15-45 minutes). It is economically feasible to limit yourself to several ships and one cargo aircraft being on duty in the air. Such an aircraft can accompany a take-off rocket at a safe distance and have minimized flight-in time (approx. 10 mins) to find a capsule with astronauts after an emergency ditching. A special powerboat is to be airdropped within the watch zone.
The powerboat is airdropped together with a team of rescuers on board, which are placed in special cradle chairs. Suspension of the boat to the parachutes has a vertical scheme which ensures a decrease in the impact effect during the water entry, and deformable protective enclosure dampens the impact and protects the steering of the hydro-jet.
Such a scheme is economically profitable, but it requires follow-on design of a craft itself. To solve this contradiction it is advisable to use this technique on a large scale in other areas of water rescue, that is, giving it to civilian rescue services for full time operation.
Within the framework of this concept, the issues of craft speed and reduction of rolling and pitching in rough weather were also analyzed. These parameters are mutually exclusive, so we proposed using a special mechanization.
Retractable bilge keels increase stability on the wave, but can be completely retracted inside the hull to achieve maximum speed.
A retractable ballast keel with active damping allows you to make up for hard vertical rocking if the latter prevents You from providing assistance to the victims.
The goal of the project was to make an all-terrain vehicle's design match an existing chassis and a standard driver's cab body (as it sets the design style).
It was necessary to develop a visual style and design of the car front, taking into account special conditions of its operation and dimensions. Since the height of the wheel is 1.6 meters, it was necessary to ensure the ability to stand on the surface of the wheel arches and bumper to provide access under the hood. The vehicle is meant to be used in remote areas, including those within the Arctic Circle, therefore it must be adapted for repair outside the service station.
Wheel arches are removable, since smaller wheels are used for movement on public roads (to reduce size). All lighting equipment is made using transparent armour and functions in two modes, optimized for large and small wheels. The engine compartment is protected from below by a sloped armor plate merging into a power bumper, also of importance is a winch mechanism inside.
Also the bodies of functional modules are developed for being placed in a vehicle: i. e. passenger and process ones.
The passenger module allows you to transport a team of workers and is used for household purposes; a version for long-term residence and housing in it is possible as well. Its body design provides for thermal insulation and special onboard systems for autonomous operation at temperatures up to -60 degrees Celsius.
The process module is designed to accommodate workbenches and medium-sized equipment at the table level. Since the lower corners of the module's body are not used, we chose a non-standard truncated shape for it, which made it possible to increase the height of the process module's internal space while the height of the vehicle remained the same.
This project features development of exterior and design for a container-module, which is to be installed on a heavy amphibious all-terrain vehicle. The module can perform various functions and we have developed several basic layouts.
The module's body is general-purpose, while the load-bearing frame, windows and doors are selected based on specifics of application. E. g. ,for the transportation of passengers the load-bearing frame must guarantee the structural integrity when rollover happens, which implies withstanding a load of nearly 30 tons. Additional evacuation exits are also provided for this option, taking into account various types of emergency situations.
Laboratory and residential modules have a lightweight frame. All types of modules are removable and moved via a crane.
All variants of the module's body can be winterized for functioning at temperatures up to minus 60 degrees Celsius, as the design of the body is optimized for such tasks and contains special isolated compartments for autonomous heaters and generators. Laboratory modules are kitted out for special research equipment according to the customer's query, usually these are mobile laboratories.
When performing full-fledged construction or repair works in hard-to-reach areas (for example, swampy forests), the problem of equipment and vehicles' delivery always arises. The most rational solution is to create special versions of construction machinery based on a general-purpose amphibious all-terrain vehicle. For this, a modular layout of the cargo compartment in an all-terrain vehicle is used.
Examples of such modules are: a general-purpose module fitted with a large manipulator crane and telescopic supports of increased height; module with a small manipulator-crane, which can be adjacent to container modules, where a specialized welding equipment is kept.
To implement such a modular principle, a framework of a waterproof vehicle body is formed, and the modules themselves are equipped with unified fasteners and adapters for connecting hydraulic and control lines.
For the development of modules one thing is a key pillar: It is extremely important to optimize the amount of equipment items in terms of all-terrain vehicles' loading capacity and weight distribution. Some modules do not need constant autonomous movement and can be trailor-mounted ; depending on the load, the trailer can be powered or passive, tracked or wheeled.
We develop concepts for application of such techniques in a customer-tailored way; our team defines a set of standard modules, and, if necessary, creates new ones.
As a spinoff of our wheeled shuttle we have developed a concept of a cargo version with a semi-trailer. This version is relevant for the tasks of transporting goods weighing about 100 kg, or delivering a large number of laboratory samples while minimizing downtime for recharging.
The concept is to create storage and recharging stations for semi-trailers. Such a station is located at/ or inside a specific production facility (with automatic gates). When entering the production premises, the semi-trailer gets connected to the power supply line, thus, charging of its batteries switches (the latter are used for haulage by a tractor unit), if necessary, heat setting of the carriage body is turned on. Upon full loading of the semitrailer, a task is formed in the information system to move it and a towing shuttle (tractor unit) arrives.
An important feature of this scheme is that batteries are present both in the semi trailer and in the tractor (power unit). When a power unit (tractor unit) heads for picking up a semi-trailer - it moves using its own batteries; as soon as it hooks up the semi-trailer, semi-trailer's batteries start being used for movement, and a primary tractor unit battery is recharged from them. As a result the tractor unit has its batteries charged and does not need to interrupt its work to recharge after delivery.
In the course of work on an amphibious all-terrain vehicle we faced with a problem in regards to crossing of a water area in the presence of ice, which is about 5-10 cm thick. Such a thickness of ice is not enough for an all-terrain vehicle to move on it (as it will fall under the ice), but the ice is strong enough to prevent an ATV from moving forward (when it is swimming).
To solve the problem, we modernized the front moldboard. A moldboard could still perform its functions of land levelling, but also carried mechanisms for localized impact rupture of ice. For a greater efficiency a tilt mechanism of an moldboard was also involved in the work, which provided an aft tilting of an all-terrain vehicle and an increase in pressure forces at the points of contact with the ice.
The prevalence of electric cars was preceded by a period of natural gas vehicles' popularity. In order to expand a network of gas filling stations it was necessary to create compact gas stations for siting on roads with low traffic.
The core of the automobile gas filling station is a compressor unit. It normally looks like a metal container, so its appearance does not attract customers. Our work featured several options for the existing compressor unit's exterior layout, while taking into account the requirements for maintenance and air conditioning. The body types we proposed did not require a change in the design of the installation itself, while they retained the ability to access all inspection hatches and control boards.
Simultaneously with ATV-functional modules' development, we are often involved in developing preliminary plans for the implementation of various construction and repair works. Their purpose is to visually assess the operation feasibility of the facilities on the construction area during the work.
Sometimes these are standard sequences of steps, where you need to select the most convenient configuration of objects on the area in terms of usability.
But there are often tasks which are associated with the large objects' transportation through rough terrain, as well as handling them on the area (e. g. repair work in the rupture zone, construction in swampy conditions, hauling down an assembled product into a barrow pit without using a crane). In these cases, for example, construction is completely determined by the capacity of transport, and it is entirely under transport functionality's purview to establish an external layout of the object.
The project pertains to the development of the automatic control concept for a complex of tracked chassis, which are combined into a single platform for transporting OWC.
To make movement of such complex possible it was necessary to develop logic for the automatic control of robotic chassis under commands of the lead truck driver . The main difficulty was synchronizing the cornering and tricky system of sensors, which determined the spatial position of all movable elements in the system.
A simplified version of such a system can be relevant as an electronic driver's assistant when driving with a bolster-type or standart trailer. A system mentioned above can visualize the current spatial position of the trailer, including the body roll indications (relevant off-road), and can also control the steering of the trailer.
In this project, we solved the problem of increasing operational life of a caterpillar mover in an all-terrain vehicle when operating in extreme conditions. Initially, the design of both reduction gear and the caterpillar chain tension system was made for standard thin sprockets used for the production of ratracs (snowcats). These sprockets work perfectly in snow and at moderately cold temperatures, but tend to brake in a few hours after being used in boggy ground with a large amount of abrasive sand and stones.
In addition to the operational life task, an ATV had to be equipped with wider asymmetric caterpillar tracks, which were meant to function on soils with different degrees of hardness, stuffed with a large number of different geometric obstacles. Such operating conditions require to reduce (and redistribute) the load at the engagement points where caterpillar tracks get linked to the wheel, and they also demand additional side support of the caterpillar track near idler and driving wheels, which implies,- it was necessary to increase the width of the wheels.
Here we encountered geometric contradictions in relation to the existing elements of the ATV chassis, so we had to conduct research dedicated to the possibility of operating asymmetric wheels. We developed a new design of the wheels which did not intersect with existing elements, and we also managed to place the reduction gear inside the new wheel.
A full cycle of research and design work was carried out, two design options were developed (lightweight and reinforced ones for extreme service conditions), a production process was also worked out, production support and control took place, as well as preparation for tests.
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