Aero-Mechanical Force Emulator

For this Phase I proposal, MZA and Etegent Technologies Inc. have teamed to leverage our complementary skill sets and put together a comprehensive force emulation solution for ELTF. MZA has extensive experience in the quantification and analysis of DE aero-effects data. This includes pressure loading and finite element analysis to predict the jitter performance beam directors, including ways to abstract complex disturbance phenomenon down to reduced order models for system performance prediction and evaluation. Etegent Technologies compliments these skills by with their expertise in vibration emulation and mechanical response characterization. Our combined efforts will be directed towards using existing aero-effects data to develop method for reducing generic disturbance data to a reduced order model that can be input to highly-configurable force emulator system. We will use a FEM model of a surrogate beam director to show the validity of this reduced order disturbance model, and perform a proof-of-concept test with a single actuator to show our ability to successfully emulate aero-mechanical forces. The last part of our Phase I effort will be preliminary design tasks that can feed into a prototype model. This will include studies of suitable actuators and sizing of a system from space limitations at ELTF.