Project Progress Report

This is a project progress report by Harsh Wani on the project titled "Design of a
conducting tether and winch combination for an aerostat". The work on this project was
started on 20th December 2021. The estimated completion date is set to be 30 March 2022.

For this two research papers and a manufacturers portfolio were identified. The following are
the resources referred to:

[1] Shah Harsh, Katare Bhavesh, Rane Vipul, Chawda Utsav & Sonawane Bhushan & Pant
Rajkumar. (2017). "Design and Fabrication of a Winch for Aerostat".23rd AIAA Lighter-
Than-Air Systems Technology Conference

[2] Balasubramanian P., S.C.Sati, Amithab Pal, Rajeev Gautam (2014), "A Novel Method for
Improving Aerostat Endurance using Microprocessor Controlled Feedtube". International
Journal of Advances in Science Engineering and Technology, Volume- 2, Issue-3, July-2014.

[3] https://thern.com/portfolio/aerostat-positioning/

Literature Review:

A brief description and findings from the studied literature are as follows.

Harsh Shaha et al. [1] have thoroughly studied previously available literature on winches and
designed and fabricated a winch for a small aerostat system. The authors have studied and
have done a critical review on the existing winches and have found that the existing designs
are too large and expensive to make. Also, they found that the existing design of the winch
was not able to align itself with the change in tether angle caused due to ambient wind. There
was also an existing issue related to the non-uniform winding of the tether on the drum. The
design requirements thus concluded by the authors are that the winch should be compact that
can be easily transported, assembled and disassembled in a short span by two people. It
should have 180 deg. pitch and 360 deg. yaw freedom. Also, it should have a mechanism for
uniform winding of tether.

The authors then go on to present the modified design for the winch and a CAD model of the
individual components and the entire assembly of the winch is provided. The subsystems are
the spool assembly, self-reversing screw and arm, breaking mechanism, a base body
assembly and the stand. The sub spool assembly consists of three components viz. cylinder,
side discs and clamping plates. The dimensions of these are calculated based on the
application and the stresses induced in them. The self-reversing screw is the special feature of
this winch. The dimensions for the pitch are calculated with reference to the tether diameter.
For the braking mechanism, gear breaking is used as it helps in making a compact design.
The base body is a square-shaped body made of an L section. It consists of mountings for the
mounting of an induction motor, mid support, and a gearbox. The gearbox has a gearing ratio
of 1:30 and is attached to the motor by a flange coupling. The authors have tried to design the
winch such that the C.G is maintained symmetrically in both the longitudinal and lateral
direction to make it stable and difficult to topple. The stand assembly has three legs and the
legs are joined to the adapter using hinged joints. To prevent toppling a foot is provided at the
other end of the leg. The author has also stated the stresses induced and type of possible
failure in the individual components which were taken into consideration while designing the
winch.

Balsubramanian P et al. [2] present a novel tether in this paper that is aimed at improving
aerostat endurance. Aerostats systems are of great use for surveillance and intelligence
gathering as they can be airborne for weeks as opposed to days or hours of the other aerial
systems. The authors aim at boosting the endurance of the aerostat system by designing a
novel tether that features a feed tube for the topping up of LTA gas. The lifting force in an
aerostat is generated due to this LTA gas and the force generated by it is directly proportional
to the purity of the LTA gas, its volume and other environmental parameters. Thus the
endurance primarily depends on the gas leakage from fabric, and impurity adding up to lifting
gas due to various reasons. Thus a need to top-up the gas to keep it airborne is seen. The
tether is an electromechanical cable that holds the balloon at the airborne end and is
connected to a winch at the ground end. The ground end is connected to the winch through a
rotary joint which facilitates electrical, optical and gas flow connectivity. At the airborne end,
it terminates at the strength bearing joint and the electrical, optical and gas connections are
pulled out from the joint and connected to the respective systems.

The simple tether as the authors write it, is a normal electromechanical cable that has an outer
jacket for environment protection, the layer below it is a lightning conductor, the next layer is
the strength bearing membrane and at the core, we have the electric conductors and optic
fibre. The next type of tether that is available in the market is the one that has all the layers as
stated for the simple tether but also has a bifurcated feed tube in the core and the electric and
optic cable around it. The bifurcated feed tube in this tether is unidirectional and there is no
backup in case of blockages. The novel tether presented in this paper improves on this
existing concept tether. The feed tube in the novel tether is split into three parts and has
microprocessor-controlled valves for a bidirectional gas flow. Based on the requirements the
bifurcations can be programmed for upward/downward gas flow. Out of the three available
passages for gas flow only two are used and one is there for backup in case of blockage.
There are in total six valves for controlling the flow of gas in and out of the system, each of
the three sections of the feed tube is connected to a low-pressure empty cylinder and a high
pressure purified helium. A table with different modes of control and their corresponding
valve positions for various scenarios like normal inflation/deflation, emergency condition or
feed tube block is presented. Based on these conditions the microcontroller executes the
algorithm and switches the valve for its required function. A detailed flowchart depicting the
various conditions and required functionality is also given for more clarity.

Thern winches & cranes [3] have designed a customized winch for surveillance aerostat with
supports the use of a conducting tether and has a large wire rope capacity. The main features
of this winch are that it has an oversized drum, capable of spooling 6,600 feet of ¾-inch
diameter fibre optic tether and a special slip ring that helps in making a rotary electrical and
optical connection. Secondly, it also has a two-part pivoting sheave system which enables the
system for uniform winding of the tether on the drum even when the tether is at different
angles in a 60-degree cone overhead due to windy conditions.

Critical Understanding and design specification:

From this initial study, it is clearly understood that the winch developed by Harsh Shah et al
[1] cannot support a conducting tether as it is already a compact design and does not have a
provision to make rotating electrical or optical connections. This problem is taken care of by
the winch designed by Thern winches [3] which suggest the use of specialized slip rings to
make such connections. Both the winches have solved the problem of uniform winding of the
cable on the drum by using a self-reversing screw or a sheave system on the winch. The study
on the novel tether design by Balsubramanian P et al. [2] gives a good idea of how according
to the requirement and for enhancing surveillance a tether can be designed.

Thus the design requirements identified for this winch and tether are:

 The provision for an electromechanical rotary joint on the winch for the use of
Conducting tether.
 A compact design of the winch for easy transportation.
 A tether that can carry electricity and signals from the ground unit to the aerial unit