Miniaturized Electric Actuation System

We propose to develop a completely integrated, power dense, submersible EM linear actuator using techniques and components recently developed for our small craft Automatic Ride Control (ARC) and hingeline aileron Rotary ElectroMechanical Actuators (REMA) including embedded electronics with extremely low loss GaN power switches. Reducing the external connections to a few wires each for power and comm will enhance shipboard integration, logistics, efficiency and EMI suppression. Depending on application, truly plug and play functionality should be possible. Though ships typically have less stringent weight and volume constraints than aircraft and small surface craft, aerospace optimization techniques are fully appliciable. Our fault tolerant BLDC motor, the engine of the actuator, has significantly better metrics than any currently available motor. No specifications are yet available for near term Navy applications so we will study the feasibility of a wide range of packaging alternatives.