This manuscript presents airborne jet propulsion by audio sounds and ultrasounds through orifices formed by bulk-micromachining of a silicon wafer. The propeller is integrated with a small, printed circuit board (PCB) with a DC/DC converter, an oscillator, and a power amplifier, all powered by a 100F lithium-ion capacitor to make the propeller operable wirelessly. The peak propulsion force of the wireless propeller is measured to be 63.1 mg (or 618 mN) while the packaged wireless propeller’s weight is 10.6 g, including the drive electronics and adapter) when driven by 2.5kHz sinusoidal voltage with 21.4Vpp. A wired propeller (with 563 mg weight without adapter) is shown to high jump, long jump, wobbly fly, and propel objects. Also, the propeller is shown to work when driven by ultrasounds with a maximum propulsion force of 8.4 mg (82 mN) when driven by 20kHz, 20Vpp sinusoidal signal. Varying the frequency gradient of the applied sinusoidal pulses is shown to move the propeller to the left or right on demand to reach a specific location.
more »
« less
WIRELESS AND STAND-ALONE SUBMARINE PROPELLER BASED ON ACOUSTIC PROPULSION
This paper presents a wireless and stand-alone subminiature propeller based on acoustic propulsion for the underwater robotic applications. The acoustic propulsion is generated by a MEMS-based self-focusing acoustic transducer (SFAT), fabricated on 1-mm-thick lead zirconate titanate (PZT) substrate, and operated at its thickness mode resonant frequency of 2.32 MHz. A 100F lithium-ion capacitor (LIC) is used as a power source due to its high energy and power densities. A drive electronic circuit is implemented on a flexible printed circuit board (PCB) and delivers 30Vpp sinusoidal signal to the acoustic propeller. The completed system is 18 x 18 x 38 mm3 in volume and weighs 12.56 grams, resulting in a mass density of 1.020 g/cm3. The acoustic propulsion generated by the acoustic propeller is measured to be 18.68μN with the electrical power of 358.7mW consumed by the propeller. Both vertical and horizontal propulsions are demonstrated successfully in sodium polytungstate (SPT) solution.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2017926
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10329990
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Hilton Head Workshop 2022: A Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Workshop
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
This paper presents acoustic propulsion in air by synthesis jets produced by ultrasounds. Various ultrasonic air-borne propellers have been fabricated on 0.37-mm-thick commercial card piezoelectric speakers (APS2513S-T-R, 25.2 × 16.6 × 0.37 mm3 in size), and studied, with the propulsion force measured through a precision weight scale, as the orifice size, thickness, spacing between orifices, and number (in the orifice array) are varied. Also varied is the orifice depth profile, as the fabrication processes for the orifices produce varying profiles. Strongest acoustic propulsion of 5.4 mg is obtained at 66 kHz (far beyond audible range) with 14 × 14 orifice array made on a 0.1-mm-thick polyester plate (resulting in a propeller of 25.2 × 16.6 × 1.37 mm3 in volume and 500 mg in weight). The acoustic propulsion force, though 93 times less than the propeller weight, is capable of making the propeller jump and move laterally.more » « less
-
This paper describes a subminiature underwater ultrasonic propeller with electrically controllability over its propulsion direction. Built on a 200-micron thick nickel-coated lead zirconate titanate (PZT) substrate, the propeller consists of 28 sectors of individually accessible Fresnel lens that are composed of Parylene air-cavity-reflectors on top of the frontside nickel electrode. A backside Fresnel air-reflector is added to prevent any propulsion from the backside that may cancel the propulsion from the front side. The fabricated propeller (4 x 4 mm2 in size and 37.5 mg in weight) is demonstrated to have control over its advancing direction when assembled on an air-filled capsule.more » « less
-
more » « less
Artificial nano‐ and microswimmers are promising as versatile nanorobots for applications in biomedicine, environmental chemistry, and materials science. Herein, a hybrid micromotor containing a conjugated polymer (poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), and a catalytic structure composed of platinum (Pt) synthesized using a template‐supported electrochemical deposition process is reported. The movement of this PEDOT/Pt micromotor is characterized under chemical power generated by hydrogen peroxide catalysis, and acoustic power generated by surface acoustic waves (SAWs). The acoustic radiation force acting between the bubbles, the secondary Bjerknes force, is shown to increase the micromotor speed. The movement of the micromotor is precisely controllable using the acoustic field, providing excellent response time and reproducibility over a wide dynamic range. A theoretical model is developed to understand and predict the micromotor propulsion under the hybrid chemical and acoustic power. Predicted micromotor speeds are in excellent agreement with experiment as a function of peroxide fuel concentration, SAW field strength, and SAW frequency. The model allows for design of micromotor geometries and acoustic field strengths to achieve desired speed with excellent on/off control.
-
more » « less
Dataset accompanying code and paper: AircraftVerse: A Large-Scale Multimodal Dataset of Aerial Vehicle Designs
We present AircraftVerse, a publicly available aerial vehicle design dataset. AircraftVerse contains 27,714 diverse battery powered aircraft designs that have been evaluated using state-of-the-art physics models that characterize performance metrics such as maximum flight distance and hover-time.
This repository contains:
- A zip file "AircraftVerse.zip", where each design_X contains:
- design_tree.json: The design tree describes the design topology, choice of propulsion and energy subsystems. The tree also contains continuous parameters such as wing span, wing chord and arm length.
- design_seq.json: A preorder traversal of the design tree and store this as design_seq.json.
- design_low_level.json: The most low level representation of the design. This low level representation includes significant repetition that is avoided in the tree representation through the use of symmetry.
- Geom.stp: CAD design for the Aircraft in composition STP format (ISO 10303 standard).
- cadfile.stl: CAD design for the Aircraft in stereolithographic STL file,
- output.json: Summary containing the UAV's performance metrics such as maximum flight distance, maximum hover time, fight distance at maximum speed, maximum current draw, and mass.
- trims.npy: Contains the [Distance, Flight Time, Pitch, Control Input, Thrust, Lift, Drag, Current, Power] at each evaluated trim state (velocity).
- pointCloud.npy: Numpy array containing the corresponding point clouds for each design.
- corpus_dic: The corpus of components (e.g. batteries, propellers) that make up all aircraft designs. It is structured as a dictionary of dictionaries, with the high level components: ['Servo', 'GPS', 'ESC', 'Wing', 'Sensor', 'Propeller', 'Receiver', 'Motor', 'Battery', 'Autopilot'], containing a list of dictionaries corresponding to the component type. E.g. corpus_dic['Battery']['TurnigyGraphene2200mAh3S75C'] contains the detail of this particular battery.
Corresponding code for this work is included at https://github.com/SRI-CSL/AircraftVerse.
Acknowledgements:
This material is based upon work supported by the United States Air Force and DARPA under Contract No. FA8750-20-C-0002. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Air Force and DARPA.
- A zip file "AircraftVerse.zip", where each design_X contains:
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
