Overview

The brushless DC motor sets the rotor in motion. The magnetic bearing system stabilizes the rotor by producing magnetic forces. The regulation unit continually receives position data of the rotor by the sensor unit and transforms it into control currents for the active magnetic bearings. This makes actuating magnets of the magnetic bearing system produce a magnetic force which keeps rotor in nominal position. Measured position data gets stored in the storage unit.

Project Overview

 

Mechanical Design

The experiment assembly is structured into separated modules and is designed to fit into the rocket cylinder of REXUS sounding rocket. Its overall height is 238 mm and weights 3.43 kg.

Mechanical Design

Active Magnetic Bearing Design

The active magnetic bearing (AMB) is responsible to limit the shaft to four degrees of freedom (x, y, yaw, pitch). This means it has to keep the shaft of the motor in the radial epicenter of the whole construction.

The measured data, collected by the displacement sensors and processed by the microcontroller cause a signal which controls the behavior of the active magnetic bearing. Depending on the position of the shaft, the current through and consequentially the force of each of the four electromagnets is varied in order to keep the shaft in the centre of the bearing.

AMB2