Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)

Monitoring and building our understanding of space weather is necessary to protect current and future astronauts and hardware, as well as further our understanding of its effects on atmospheric development and loss. This project has developed two radiation-hardened sensor frontends to measure the ion composition of the solar wind aboard the Solar Probe ANalyzer for Ions (SPAN-Ion). SPAN-Ion uses time-of-flight mass spectrometry to distinguish ions by their mass: charge ratios; the target architecture for future missions decreases mass and increases speed in exchange for several orders of...

Autonomous swimming microrobots for biomedical applications and distributed sensing require locally controllable swimming mechanisms. This project aims to develop underwater, rotary electrostatic inchworm motors for artificial flagella. Our proposed design uses gap closing actuators with an angle arm design, similar to existing inchworm motors, to drive a central rotor, all fabricated with an SOI process. An artificial flagella is attached the rotor, converting the rotational motion into propulsion. Major challenges include efficient operation of electrostatic motors underwater and...