Engaged in diverse areas of research and development, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Draper has a way of touching cutting-edge magnetic technologies in many of its activities, dating back to its founder who was a pioneer in inertial navigation. Recent activities include:
- Currently, it is leading a defense research project to test the boundaries of microbe-based sensing technologies in a defense research project to engineer microbes that can sense and respond to physical stimuli such as light or magnetic fields.
- The Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering was awarded this year to Dr. Stuart Parkin who in the mid-1990s demonstrated a sensing device that detected the magnetic spin of electrons, leading to unprecedented advancements in computer technology. This pioneered the development of spintronics, short for spin transport electronics, a field that seeks to harness the natural spin of electrons to control a material’s magnetic properties.
- As part of a major effort by NASA planned for 2025, Draper is leading a consortium to provide a lunar lander from which scientists hope to study the thermal and geophysical properties of the moon’s interior as well as electric and magnetic properties in a location close to the lunar South Pole shielded from Earth’s electromagnetic fields.
- Efforts continue to develop a magnet-free electrostatic motor, aiming for a new family of electric motors and generators based on fundamentally different principles from e-motors used today. Almost all electric motors use magnetism to generate torque. For centuries, engineers have known that forces from electric fields can also be harnessed to build motors, but these so-called electrostatic motors were considered too weak to compete with their electromagnetic cousins.
Tellus program
Over the past decade, scientists have proved that engineered microbes can exhibit a range of sense-and-response functions. They can be programmed to convert input signals into detectible outputs, such as a change in color when they encounter specific toxins. They can sense and respond to physical stimuli such as light or magnetic fields. They can even produce an electric current to actuate a tiny gear.
Now, Draper is leading a diverse team of experts in partnership with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for its Tellus program. It is tasked to explore the development of an interactive, platform methodology for the rapid design of microbe-based sense-and-respond devices for monitoring DOD-relevant environments. Specifically, DARPA seeks to establish the range of chemical and physical signals that microbial devices can detect, environmental conditions they can tolerate, and types of output signals that can be generated. To this end, Tellus will focus on developing the methodology to enable the rapid design of agile, robust, reliable, and durable microbial sensors for environmental monitoring.
“Microbes have the potential to be developed as biological sensors that can collect vital information about the environments they naturally inhabit,” said Chris Vaiana in Draper’s Biotechnology business. “Our goal is to support DARPA in mapping the modular design of microbe-based sensors, develop a standardized design-build-test process analogous to the hardware development processes and determine the environmental conditions in which these sensors operate.”
Current approaches to environmental monitoring rely on distributed sensor networks on the ground, in the water, and on satellites and autonomous systems, such as drones. The goal of Tellus program is to develop a complementary monitoring system composed of microbial devices that can translate detected signals into a variety of physical or chemical output signals that can then be measured by conventional receiver systems, such as photonic, photoelectronic or imaging systems.
Applications vary depending on the configuration. A microbe-based sensing system could be used to detect pesticides, toxins and contaminants in the soil and water. It could also be used to detect harmful agents like heavy metals, organic pollutants, explosives, chemical warfare agents and poison gases.
Draper scientists will develop six unique microbial sense-and-respond devices that will function in a range of environments, according to Kevin Remillard, Draper’s Director for the DARPA Tellus program team. “Monitoring emerging conditions in the environment using microbe-based sensing requires a flexible, multidisciplinary engineering approach. Draper will draw on expertise in areas including synthetic biology and bioinformatics to do just that,” he said.
Draper Prize
Recognized as one of the world’s most prestigious awards for achievement in engineering, the Charles Stark Draper Prize is awarded biannually by the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Parkin is an experimental physicist, director at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle, Germany, and an Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the Institute of Physics of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. His research led to the development of spintronic materials and devices, a market projected to reach nearly $1.4 billion by 2033, according to Future Market Insights.
The prize was established and endowed in 1988 at the request of Draper in tribute to its founder, Dr. Charles Stark Draper, who pioneered inertial navigation. A key element in an inertial navigation system is a magnetometer sensor which measures the Earth’s magnetic field, providing crucial information about the system’s heading relative to magnetic north, thus complementing the data from accelerometers and gyroscopes to determine a complete position and movement profile. Draper scientists and engineers continue today to develop advanced guidance, navigation and control systems.
NASA project part of Artemis program
NASA’s Artemis program intends to send humans back to the moon, including setting up a base there. But before that can happen, more research is needed about the lunar surface. In NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, Draper and its partners are working to deliver a suite of three NASA-sponsored science payloads to the Moon, as well as two communication and data relay satellites for lunar orbit, in 2025. The Draper-led team includes General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems; ispace US; and Systima, a division of Karman Space & Defense.
Draper is responsible for end-to-end delivery services, including payload integration, delivery from Earth to the surface of the Moon and payload operations. It is also developing the descent, guidance, navigation and control system for the lander.
he experiments riding on Team Draper’s SERIES-2 lander are headed to Schrödinger Basin, a large lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon, close to the lunar South Pole—a first for NASA. Scientists hope to study the thermal and geophysical properties of the lunar interior as well as electric and magnetic properties in a landing location shielded from Earth’s electromagnetic fields.
The goal of the CLPS project is to enable rapid, frequent and affordable access to the lunar surface by helping to establish a viable commercial lunar landing services sector. CP-12 will make possible the kind of geophysical observations from the surface of the Moon that have consistently remained a high priority among the lunar community.
Electrostatic motor
Leveraging a recent patent on aspects of the technology, state-of-the-art materials, novel designs and decades of fabrication expertise, Draper is developing powerful new electric motors that break the torque barrier suffered by previous electrostatic motors. Most motors have low voltage and high current, however, this is just the opposite — high voltage with low currents with thin conductors and minimal structure which leads to high efficiency, ultra-low weight, and increased range for battery powered vehicles, all without expensive and heavy rare-earth magnets.
“Our e-motors use thin electrodes and electrets which reduce weight by 80% or more as compared to conventional motors. This translates to a range extension of up to 40% for drones and up to 25% for electric vehicles based on our simulations,” explained Sabrina Mansur, automotive business development manager. They are designed without the use of rare earth materials.
A team of Draper interns—Karthik Shaji, Julie Katz, Nick Ghaffarian, Lucas Dahlke, and Michael D’Agati—are working together on ESPRI. Each member of the team is responsible for different aspects including building predictive models, designing the mechanical elements, creating the electronics and integrating them to create a functional motor.
Begun several years ago as an internal R&D project, the effort has now turned into a student-run project known as ESPRI with Draper advisor Jim Bickford, who is leader of the Device and Engineering Physics group. Assembly of a prototype took place recently. The team’s goal is to mature ESPRI so it could be used as a bike motor while an objective for Draper is to use the motor in more applications for its defense and commercial partners for their autonomous vehicles, cars and other platforms.
As an independent nonprofit engineering innovation company, Draper provides engineering services to government, industry, and academia working on teams as prime contractors or subcontractors and participating as collaborators in consortia. It has 2,000+ employees and about $750 million in annual revenue. See www.draper.com.
