The UWR Venetians

Fujairah | Exploring Venus Together

Venetian's Power Source

High-Level Project Summary

Our solution consists of the positives of all of our versions. For cooling, we decided to use a custom-made carbon compressor made of titanium and carbon fibre. The carbon compressor would turn CO2 (a gas abundantly available on Venus) into liquid CO2, our coolant. We used plutonium batteries as our primary power source and lithium sulphur batteries as our backup. To charge the plutonium batteries we will design a temperature-controlled area as plutonium batteries charge when the temperature of the surrounding environment is higher than the battery. We plan to use polymer insulation for the circuit boards that control the rover.

Link to Final Project

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IqMe8GTGPPVCqIzFH-uPFjfhlpv0dYgJw0c5fyvGyW8/edit?usp=sharing

Link to Project "Demo"

https://1drv.ms/p/s!AkMJWAAXchtjikmrGrJVKI29BfGJ

Detailed Project Description

Our task was to create an energy storage system for a rover that will be sent to explore Venus. Our objective is to make the rover 60 days surviving harsh conditions and the tough terrain of Venus.

For our energy system, we are using plutonium batteries as our main power source, plutonium batteries are thermoelectric devices i.e. can convert heat to electricity. The plutonium will be housed in a temperature-controlled section because the battery recharges when the temperature of its surrounding environment is hotter than the battery itself.

Due to the unstable nature of plutonium, the section would have three layers. The innermost being titanium and silicon as insulation and the outermost layer being carbon fibre. The unstable nature of the plutonium gave us another reason to create a backup energy source.

The backup source would be lithium sulphur batteries. In our earlier version we decided to use this as our main source but then switched due to the unstable discharge rates. lithium sulphur battery can last 8 hours of full use without charge. Since the amount you can charge them degrades over time. Ignoring this, one battery (in terms of just the jellyroll) is a measly 6.6 grams. Because this is meant to stay for 60 days, which is 1440 hours, we would need 180 batteries (1440/8 hours). Since the weight of each of them is 6.6 grams, this would add up to the north of a kg, which is light enough seeing as you’re packing 60 days of battery life. Half of 1 kg is 500 grams.

One of the major issues we had to consider was a cooling system. We thought why not harness and use something we have in abundance? Our electrical system uses liquid Co2 as a coolant. The way we would harness it is by using carbon fibre and titanium Co2 compressor which would cool our entire system. Finally, the circuit boards would be insulated with polymer.

Apps and software used:

To display and present our demo we used Microsoft Powerpoint.
To collaborate and create we used Google Docs
To interpret our idea we used Microsoft Whiteboard
To draw diagrams and interpretation we used Goodnotes5 and Notability
To communicate with each other we used WhatsApp
To meet with each other we used Zoom and Google Meet
To create our book cover we used Canva

Space Agency Data

NASA - High Energy, Long Cycle Life, and Extreme Temperature Lithium-Sulfur Battery for Venus Missions

We used the link provided under resources to be able to jumpstart brainstorming sessions in the first few weeks. We used this data. to eventually come up with the idea to use plutonium in our power source.

NASA- https://rps.nasa.gov/news/22/spacecraft-nuclear-batteries-could-get-a-boost-from-new-materials/

We read this link to understand how these batteries functioned and then we thought about using it in out energy storage system.

NASA- https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/venus-temp20110926.html

We used this link to understand the harsh environment and weather of Venus.

Hackathon Journey

Our journey began at Unique World Robotics in the UAE we were a small team of 6 people within the 4 other groups mentored by UWR. In the beginning, most of us were hesitant to speak as none of us knew each other before. Over the next few weeks, we would work as a well-oiled machine; efficient and resourceful with the time we had. During the first week, we had a slow start as people got to know each other and recognize each team member's skill set.

It was difficult to choose a topic as each team member possessed a wide variety of skills, at the end, we reached a decision to choose a challenge that would push our limits as a team.

Initially, we had trouble finding the right battery power source as every method we looked into failed at high temperatures. Our 'huzzah' moment came in the form of plutonium which we selected as our main power source.

When developing the project, as with any good team the tasks were delegated according to skillset and prioritized accordingly. Although our mentor was from India she made the time to show up to every team meeting and helped us stay on the right track. We used resources from all across the internet to new software that the team had to learn over the course of these weeks to build 3D models.

During the final weeks of the project our team members had assessments within their respective schools making it difficult for a team meeting twice a week, we are proud to have overcome these hiccups to create the best project possible.

We would like to thank our mentors Ms Akhila R. Gomez, Mr Abhinav Kannan & Mrs Jithin Anu Jose has been a great help all these weeks. Mr Bansan Thomas George for organizing and helping along the way when we were stuck.