Study of electro rheological fluid damper for microgravity experiment

When a passive damping system is applied for the purpose of improving the microgravity environment to make the experimental missions successfully, it is desirable to give the extremely soft and flexible support in it's stiffness to enhance the vibration reduction performance. However, the payload damping system should be designed to withstand any disturbing force and stabilize payload even when a large force occurred by spacecraft attitude/orbit maneuvering or operation of other moving parts. In terms of the passive dampers, the damper performance for g-jitter reduction depends strongly on the damping parameter, i.e., setting low damping value is effective to reduce the g-jitter in high frequency band while the magnification factor at resonance frequency increases conversely. An experimental device of semi-actively controlled damper using ERF has been manufactured. This ERF damper consists mainly of the membranes and electrode. The manufactured ERF damper has a possibility to solve the above-mentioned problems when some appropriate controls are performed. This paper describes the feasibility studies of the ERF damper application techniques for microgravity experimental facilities with feedback system using LQG control.