Publications
Categories
Actuators for Space Applications: State of the Art and New Technologies
19 June 2023
Actuators in space are broadly used to operate satellites’ platform and payload devices. Despite their common utilisation, actuators still represent critical subsystems as their failure might often lead to severe, when not catastrophic, effects on the spacecraft operations. Environmental conditions to which actuators are exposed in space are generally not favourable: operating temperature ranges and deep vacuum are certainly the most critical ones.
Rotation free linear actuator
19 June 2023
This paper presents the development of a rotation free linear actuator: The use of highly dynamic actuator in the rotating frame, such as piezo actuator, required dedicated devices to transmit the electrical power from the static frame to the rotating one. Slip rings and rotating transformers are able to provide this function. However the integration of such components required invasive operations
ABC Rotor blades: design, manufacturing and testing
19 June 2023
ABC is the acronym for ‘’Active Blade Concept’’ and represents a 38% Mach scaled model rotor of the Advanced Technology Rotor (ATR) of Eurocopter Germany (ECD, [4]). In contrast to the ATR the model rotor is fully articulated. Specifically, it is equipped with a flap at the trailing edge of each blade, which is driven by a piezoelectric actuator. The ABC project is a cooperation between the French ONERA and the German DLR within the research concept ‘’The Active Rotor’’.
Actuators in adaptronics: piezoelectric actuators
19 June 2023
Piezoelectric actuators have increased their number of application in adaptronics over the past decade [1]. They can be used with several drive and control strategies and they are more adapted to mechatronics applications requiring bandwidth, accuracy and/or lightweightness. The purpose of this paper is to recall the different existing piezo actuators, the different drive and control techniques and finally review several applications in machine tools, optics.
Constant gradient elastography with optimal control RF pulses
7 November 2019
This article presents a new motion encoding strategy to perform magnetic resonance elastography (MRE). Instead of using standard motion encoding gradients, a tailored RF pulse is designed to simultaneously perform selective excitation and motion encoding in presence of a constant gradient. The RF pulse is designed with a numerical optimal control algorithm, in order to obtain a magnetization phase distribution that depends on the displacement characteristics inside each voxel. As a consequence, no postexcitation encoding gradients are required. This offers numerous advantages, such as reducing eddy current artifacts, and relaxing the constraint on the gradients maximum switch rate. It also allows to perform MRE with ultra-short TE acquisition
schemes, which limits T2 decay and optimizes signal-to-noise ratio. The pulse design strategy is developed and analytically analyzed to clarify the encoding mechanism. Finally, simulations, phantom and ex vivo experiments show that phase-to-noise ratios are improved when compared to standard MRE encoding strategies.
Limited Angle Torque for fine angular positioning
19 June 2023
A Limited Angle Torque (LAT) actuator has been designed by Cedrat upon request of the European Space Agency (ESA) for fine pointing applications based on gimbals assembly. The required angular stroke for this application is 13°. Other required features are controllability, high resolution, no micro vibration. Therefore the selected concept is a coil-redounded electromagnetic actuator using Lorentz force. The functional test shows that the generated torque is linear until 200mN.m, but torques up to 300mN.m are achievable.
