Striction-based Power Monitoring in Space Environment

The program will leverage recent advances in striction materials and coupled striction devices as to enable highly isolated (analog) voltage and current flow sensors very suitable for harsh space environment power monitoring. Exhibiting negligible electromagnetic disturbance coupling and electromagnetic emission, these non-photonic striction based power flow monitoring introduces decided advantages of eliminating magnetics, processors, degradation and 'latch-up'. These units are simpler and lower cost to manufacture than photonic or capacitive coupled methods of measurement and possessing and furthermore provide far greater (galvanic) isolation capability than is presently achievable. Moreover they can safely/reliably operate over a wide temperature range to as low as cryogenic. The innovation eliminates the present need for separate isolation and gain stages as these are now accomplished in a single step as to reduce design complexity and risk. The effort is to show that these new striction power flow monitoring capabilities can measure power characteristics over wide bandwidth to DC and are highly suitable for widespread NASA use in wide temperature range and high radiation environments. The proposed modular design will be easy to install and reduces the spares requirements.