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Goldfarb CREATE Lab

Monopropellant

Monopropellant Powered Actuation

Energetic deficiencies in current power supply and actuation technology limit significantly the utility of human-scale self-powered robots.  Such deficiencies have motivated the development of alternative actuators that have the potential to deliver improved energetic characteristics relative to battery-powered servomotors. The Center for Intelligent Mechatronics has developed several embodiments of liquid-monopropellant-powered actuators, which have been demonstrated to provide significantly improved power density (relative to battery-powered electric-motor-actuated approaches, and also improved energy density. Specifically, recent publications have demonstrated an order of magnitude improvement (relative to battery/motor systems), based on an energetic figure of merit which combines the actuation system power and energy densities.

 

Publications

  • A Unified Force Controller for a Proportional-Injector Direct-Injection Monopropellant-Powered Actuator, K. B. Fite, J. E. Mitchell, E. J. Barth, and M. Goldfarb, ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control, vol. 128, no. 1, 2005. ASME Digital Collection
  • Design and Energetic Characterization of a Proportional-Injector, K. B. Fite and M. Goldfarb, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 196-204, 2006. IEEE Xplore
  • Sliding Mode Control of a Direct-Injection Monopropellant-Powered Actuator, K. B. Fite, J. E. Mitchell, E. J. Barth and M. Goldfarb, IEEE American Control Conference, pp. 4461-4466, June 2004. IEEE Xplore
  • Design and Energetic Characterization of a Liquid-Propellant-Powered Actuator for Self-Powered Robots, M. Goldfarb, E. J. Barth, M. A. Gogola, J. A. Wehrmeyer, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, vol. 8 , no. 2, pp. 254-262, 2003. IEEE Xplore
  • Design and Energetic Characterization of a Solenoid Injected Liquid Monopropellant Powered Actuator for Self-Powered Robots, B. Shields and M. Goldfarb, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 241-246, April 2005. IEEE Xplore
  • Predictive Control for Time-Delayed Switching Control Systems, B. L. Shields, E. J. Barth, and M. Goldfarb, ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control, Vol. 128, no. 4, 2006
  • Design, Control, and Energetic Characterization of a Solenoid-Injected Monopropellant-Powered Actuator, B. Shields, K. B. Fite, and M. Goldfarb, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 254-262, 2006. ASME Digital Collection