• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.48 no.10
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• pp.791-799
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• 2020

Launched in October 2019, Northrop Grumman's MEV-1 was the world's first unmanned mission demonstrating the practical feasibility of on-orbit servicing. Although the concept of on-orbit servicing was proposed several decades ago, it has been developed to various mission concepts providing services such as orbit change, station keeping, propellant and equipment supply, upgrade, repair, on-orbit assembly and production, and space debris removal. The historical success of MEV-1 is expected to expand the market of on-orbit servicing for government agencies and commercial sectors worldwide. The on-orbit servicing essentially requires the utilization of a highly propellant efficient electric propulsion system due to the nature of the mission. In this study, the space mission analysis for a simple on-orbit mission involving Hall thruster is conducted, which is life extension mission for geostationary orbit satellites. In order to analyze the mission, design space exploration for various Hall thruster design variable combinations is performed. The values of design variables and operational parameters of Hall thruster suitable for the mission are proposed through design space analysis and optimization, and mission performance is derived. In addition, the direction of further improvement for the current on-orbit mission analysis process and space mission analysis involving Hall thruster is reviewed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 1999.07a
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• pp.216-216
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• 1999

The usage of a stationary plasma thruster (SPT) ion source, invented previously for space application in Russia, in experiments with surface modifications and film deposition systems is reported here. Plasma in the SPT is formed and accelerated in electric discharge taking place in the crossed axial electric and radial magnetic fields. Brief description of the construction of specific model of SPT used in the experiments is presented. With gas flow rate 39ml/min, ion current distributions at several distances from the source are obtained. These was equal to 1~3 mA/$\textrm{cm}^2$ within an ion beam ejection angle of $\pm$20$^{\circ}$with discharge voltage 160V for Ar as a working gas. Such an extremely high ion current density allows us to obtain the Ti metal films with deposition rate of $\AA$/sec by sputtering of Ti target. It is shown a possibility of using of reactive gases in SPT (O2 and N2) along with high purity inert gases used for cathode to prevent the latter contamination. It is shown the SPT can be operated at the discharge and accelerating boltages up to 600V. The results of presented experiments show high promises of the SPT in sputtering and surface modification systems for deposition of oxide thin films on Si or polymer substrates for semiconductor devices, optical coatings and metal corrosion barrier layers. Also, we have been tried to establish in application of the modeling expertise gained in electric and ionic propulsion to permit numerical simulation of additional processing systems. In this mechanism, it will be compared with conventional DC sputtering for film microstructure, chemical composition and crystallographic considerations.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.112-119
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• 2016

NEXTSat-1 is the next-generation small-size artificial satellite system planed by the Satellite Technology Research Center(SatTReC) in Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology(KAIST). For the control of attitude and transition of the orbit, the system has adopted a RHM(Resisto-jet Head Module), which has a very simple geometry with a reasonable efficiency. An axisymmetric model is devised with two coil-resistance heaters using xenon(Xe) gas, and the minimum required specific impulse is 60 seconds under the thrust more than 30 milli-Newton. To design the module, seven basic parameters should be decided: the nozzle shape, the power distribution of heater, the pressure drop of filter, the diameter of nozzle throat, the slant length and the angle of nozzle, and the size of reservoir, etc. After quasi one-dimensional analysis, a theoretical value of specific impulse is calculated, and the optima of parameters are found out from the baseline with a series of multi-physical numerical simulations based on the compressible Navier-Stokes equations for gas and the heat conduction energy equation for solid. A commercial code, COMSOL Multiphysics is used for the computation with a FEM (finite element method) based numerical scheme. The final values of design parameters indicate 5.8% better performance than those of baseline design after the verification with all the tuned parameters. The present method should be effective to reduce the time cost of trial and error in the development of RHM, the thruster of NEXTSat-1.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.65-72
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• 2021

700 W class laboratory model Hall thruster, which can be used for the orbit control or station keeping of small satellites, was developed. The size of the discharge channel was determined using a scaling law, and the magnetic field was designed to be symmetric with respect to the midline of the discharge channel and to be maximized outside the discharge channel. Base pressure of a vacuum chamber was maintained below 2.0×10^-5 Torr during experiments, and the thrust was measured by a thrust stand. The anode flow rate and coil current were varied with the fixed anode voltage at 300 V. Under the operation condition at 2.36 mg/s anode flow rate and 2.4 A coil current, performance was optimized as 38 mN thrust, 1,540 s total specific impulse, and 50 % anode efficiency at 620 W anode power.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.557-560
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• 2008

A two-dimensional particle-in-cell(PIC) simulation with a Monte-Carlo Collision(MCC) has been developed to investigate the discharge characteristics of the acceleration channel of a HET. The dynamics of electrons and ions are treated with PIC method at the time scale of electrons in order to investigate the particle transport. The densities of charged particles are coupled with Poisson's equation. Xenon neutrals are injected from the anode and experience elastic, excitation, and ionization collisions with electrons, and are scattered by ions. These collisions are simulated by using an MCC model. The effects of control parameters such as magnetic field profile, electron current density, and the applied voltage have been investigated. The secondary electron emission on the dielectric surface is also considered.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.1203-1211
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• 2009

The dynamics of underwater vehicles can be greatly influenced by the dynamics of the vehicle thrusters. The control of the state of the hovering or very slow motion of the underwater vehicle is most important for automatic docking or control of the manipulator of the vehicle. The dynamics of the thruster based on the electric motor is nonlinear and has uncertain parameters. Since the dynamics of the vehicle coupled with the dynamics of the thruster is nonlinear and has uncertain parameters, a robust control is very effective for a desired motion tracking of the uncertain and nonlinear vehicle. In this paper a study was performed on the robust control scheme of the very slow motion or hovering motion of the underwater vehicle actuated by the electric motor. Also, a concurrent control on the state of the vehicle with nonlinearity and uncertain parameters was performed. A sliding mode control algorithm out of robust controllers was designed and applied, which compensates the nonlinear forces and uncertain parameters of the vehicle and actuator. Through a computer simulation, the proposed control scheme was compared with a linear PD controller and its superior performance was validated.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.149-156
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• 2015

The Dynamic Positioning System consists of 7 elements which are namely Power system, Human machine interface, DP Computer, Position Reference System(PRS), Sensors, Thruster system and DP Operator. Incidents like loss of position(LOP) on DP vessel usually occur due to errors in these 7 elements. The purpose of this study is to find out safety operation method of DP vessel through qualitative and quantitative analyze of DP LOP incidents which are submitted to IMCA every year. The 612 DP LOP incidents submitted from 2001 to 2010 were analyzed to find out the main cause of the incidents and its rate among other causes. Consequently, the highest rate of incidents involving DP elements are PRS errors. DP computer, Power system, Human error and thruster system came next. The PRS has been analyzed and a flowchart was drawn through expert brainstorming. Also, the conditional probability has been analyzed through Bayesian Networks based on this flowchart. Consequentially, the main causes of drive off incidents were DGPS, microwave radar and HPR. Also, this study identified the main causes of DGPS errors through Bayesian Networks. These causes are signal blocked, electric components failure, relative mode error, signal weak or fail.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.271-277
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• 2004

As one of the concepts of the laser/electric hybrid propulsion system, a feasibility study on possibilities of electrostatic acceleration of a laser ablation plasma induced from a solid target was conducted. Energy distributions of accelerated ions were measured by a Faraday cup. A time-of-flight measurement was also conducted for ion velocity measurement. It was found that an average speed of ions from a pure laser ablation in this case was about 20 km/sec for pulse energy of 40 $\mu$J/pulse with pulse width of 250 psec. On the other hand, through an electrostatic field with a + I ,000 V electrode, the speed could be accelerated up to 40 km/sec. It was shown that the electrode with positive potential was more effective than that with negative potential for positive-ion acceleration in laser induced plasma, or pulsed plasma, in which ions were induced with the Coulomb explosion following electrons. In addition, the ion-acceleration or deceleration strongly depended on conditions of pairs of inner diameter and electrodes gap.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.287-295
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• 2018

This paper presents the results of an exploration of the ferromanganese crusts of Western Pacific Seamount registered by the Korean government. This area has been surveyed with a deep-sea camera and crust samples have been acquired by deep-sea dredging since 2013. On October 18-19, 2017, a united research team from KIOST and KRISO explored two blocks, OSM11 and OSM07, on the seamount using Hemire ROV. A precise survey was conducted on the ferromanganese crusts and sediments covering the slope/top of OSM11 and the middle flat area of OSM07. Rock samples were collected with precise positioning, and HD videos were recorded for 7 hours. This paper discusses the technical issues of this exploration in terms of (1) how to deal with an emergency situation during an electric power blackout, (2) the improvement of the thruster power by adding cooling plugs to the housings of the thruster amplifiers, (3) the relative motion of the depressor by changing the fixing method of the cable terminator, which affects the service life of the cable, (4) a sampling technique for the steep slope of the seamount, (5) integrated navigation under a USBL blackout, and (6) a 3-dimensional image mosaic for visualizing the distribution state of the crusts.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.195-215
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• 2022

The increasing interest in CubeSat platforms ant their capability of enlarging the frontier of possible missions impose technology improvements. Miniaturized electrical propulsion (EP) systems enable new mission for multi-unit CubeSats (6U+). While electric propulsion systems have achieved important level of knowledge at equipment level, the investigation of the mutual impact between EP system and CubeSat technology at system level can provide a decisive improvement for both the technologies. The interaction between CubeSat and EP system should be assessed in terms of electromagnetic emissions (both radiated and conducted), thermal gradients, high electrical power management, surface chemical deposition, and quick and reliable data exchanges. This paper shows how a versatile CubeSat Test Platform (CTP), together with standardized procedures and specialized facilities enable the acquisition fundamental and unprecedented information. Measurements can be taken both by specific ground support equipment placed inside the vacuum facility and by dedicated sensors and subsystems installed on the CTP, providing a completely new set of data never obtained before. CTP is constituted of a 6U primary structure hosting the EP system, representative CubeSat avionics and batteries. For the first test campaign, CTP hosts the ambipolar plasma propulsion system, called Regulus and developed by T4I. After the integration and the functional test in laboratory environment, CTP + Regulus performed a Test campaign in relevant environment in the vacuum chamber at CISAS, University of Padua. This paper is focused on the test campaign description and the main results achieved at different power levels for different duration of the firings.