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Universal Event | Exploring Venus Together

THE CLUTCH BATTERY

High-Level Project Summary

THE CLUTCH BATTERY provides a storage system for the AREE. The system offers the energy required for moving, signaling, analyzing data, etc. Mainly, the problem is to overcome 390C-485C temperature and 92 bar pressure. The spring storage system was decided to be the solution since the mechanical mechanism would be better under such circumstances. Specifically, the spiral spring was developed to store the energy as potential energy. The battery may be recharged by wind turbines, solar panels and regenerative breaking. That property can keep the rover working for a proper duration. Although the AREE may move mechanically, the rover won't achieve its purpose from without the that storage system

Link to Final Project

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/13mOs6WZd8645XaMYryzfEgZO64C28D6s

Link to Project "Demo"

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1UQvbIBBGMWlubj9IyhZ2GHQFjERQuDJ7

Detailed Project Description

Introduction

The planet Venus is an interesting target for scientific exploration. However, long-duration missions to the surface of Venus present a significant challenge to the power system due to its ambient temperature (390 to 485oC) and high average surface pressure of carbon dioxide (92 bar). Therefore, conventional power technologies including photovoltaic power systems and the conventional batteries could not meet the requirement for Venus’s surface application.

Most space missions utilize some form of energy storage, such as a battery on their spacecraft. The need for long cycle life, high energy density batteries with minimal self-discharge and enhanced safety are the most critical requirements of energy storage systems used in extended duration space missions. Venus presents the most significant challenge to energy storage systems due to a combination of high temperature (452°C) and presence of corrosive gases (CO2, CO, SO2, and N2)

The main idea of the mechanical battery is to hold energy in the form of potential energy using spring systems. After the charging process of converting the input electric current into kinetic energy using a motor, then move the kinetic energy generated into gear system then stored inside a spring in the form of potential energy, then releasing it once its energy is needed to be consumed.

Discussion

For in situ planetary exploration missions, energy is required to power scientific instruments, gather, and process the data collected, and communicate the results back to Earth. Energy is also often required to move a vehicle on the surface. Batteries are typically used to store and deliver this energy. However, currently available batteries cannot operate in the extreme environment on the surface of Venus. Exposed to these conditions, common batteries would rapidly fail. All previous missions to the surface of Venus have been designed to operate for short durations (less than two hours). In those missions, the components were contained in a pressure vessel, which eventually heated up to a temperature at which the components could no longer operate and the mission ended. Our challenge is to design an energy storage system that supports a surface lander or rover on the surface of Venus for at least 60 days. How would the mission be powered?

In order to line up with a solution, a mechanical rechargeable battery was designed owing to harness a pack of procedures and consequently store energy in a form of potential energy. To accomplish the intriguing solution.

Some considerations

• Stored energy: the energy will be stored as potential energy which will not be affected by the heat.

• Sources of energy: wind turbines, solar panels, and regenerative breaking

• Rate of usage: According to a research paper by Nasa the energy is used is signaling, moving, collecting and analyzing samples, weather data, and other sciences. According to the paper the energy consumed each day can easily be calculated

• Self-discharge rate: since the gear will be stopped by a rod the self-discharge rate can be negligible.

• Protective closure: it is not required but using one would be better for the lunching.

• Orientation: the system can be operated in any orientation.

• Rechargeable: one of the distinguished property of the battery is the recharging property which make it last for the prober duration.

The mechanism

Simply, after the energy supply from the different sources, the motor start to rotate a gear system rotating the spiral spring storing energy inside of it as potential energy, then the motor stop and a rod is inserted inside the gear system to prevent its movement. When the rover require energy, the spring will start rotating the gear system the other way and the motor will operate as a generator.

Done differently

Being creative was one of our goals as we used the mechanical battery instead of usual chemical battery because it operates better at such circumstances. The spring storage system was decided as the solution however there is no rover ever lunched with that mechanism. Specifically, we chose the spiral spring which was never used as a battery however with the previous mechanism energy storing is guaranteed.

Conclusion

With a such a battery and the already designed AREE, the rover will be able to discover Venus and tell the humanity about its transition as, according to esa, Venus was once believed to have water in it. In addition to collecting and analyzing samples from Venus will help develop the technology used today.

Space Agency Data

The team has used alot if the data and resoources provided by Nasa especially the resourses about the AREE. We used those links.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/automaton-rover-for-extreme-environments-aree/

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_2016_phasei_saunder_aree_tagged.pdf

WE also found a very intruging research done by the European Space Agency. The research was to elaporate the potentials and the properties of venus. We used this link

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Venus_Express/Venus_has_potential_but_not_for_water

Hackathon Journey

For our team this was the first time attending a hackathon event. The excitement and effectiveness in the event helped in developing our project. The event provided us with many facilities helping us working on the project like some monitors whom their majors were related to our idea helping us with our questions as they had many effective skills. Internet access was also provided helping us in our research. This journey gave us more experience in searching field and gaining more information about the solution of our challenge. This challenge was chosen by our team as it is one of the most interesting challenges, in addition the idea of exploring Venus is just a passion. Also, the challenge serves many fields like space, and hardware which are from the team members interests. As for our approaches to develop that idea is to use mechanical storage systems however that turned out to have a lot of flaws. With that short time period we needed to find a solution as fast as possible, so we developed a battery that no one has thought of using spiral springs. As a team we would like to give our gratitude to Nasa for offering such opportunity.