2007-2008
The Mars Gravity
Biosatellite project aims to obtain information about the effects of an
extended partial gravity environment on mammalian physiology in a long term
effort to enable a manned mission to Mars. A small capsule containing
15 female
adult lab mice will be launched into space and will spend 35 days in low earth
orbit simulating .38g. At the end of the 35 days the satellite will de-orbit,
the payload will be retrieved through a mid-air recovery procedure, and the
mice will be studied.
The 6 DOF simulations
will answer two important questions. How the satellite’s guidance & control
system responds to external forces & uncertainties, and how the satellite
responds to adjustments prescribed by the control system.
By
running multiple re-entry scenarios, landing uncertainty plots can be
generated, which will provide with a level of confidence with respect to the
likelihood of landing in a given region. This is especially important for the
Mars-
Gravity Biosatellite because the payload will be
recovered in mid air, and knowledge of the degree of
scatter of possible landing points is crucial. The team will work together with
advisor from MIT and report to the system team of the Mars biosatellite
program.
Micro
underwater robots have applications in both military and medicine. For example,
they can be used for drug delivery or special delicate surgical operation. Research into such a swimming micro-robot
for in vivo applications faces many challenges, of which a means of propulsion
is a primary concern. In order to design propulsion systems that work at
the micro scale, it is helpful to look at how nature has accomplished
this, such as the mechanisms used by fish, jelly fish, bacteria or sperms. By
comparing different propulsion mechanisms, an efficient method
has to be chosen for a micro scale robot that could swim smoothly in water or
aqueous medium. Propulsion force, forward velocity and power consumption have
to be estimated. Eventually, a scaled-up wired or wireless macro prototype has
to be built and the performance has to be demonstrated.
Stroke is the third leading cause of
death in the