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Control of life support systems for lunar habitats
With the announcement of NASA's Artemis program to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, there is an increased interest in the development of technologies to facilitate this endeavour. The student will be responsible for designing a life support control system for a moon base.
Keywords: Space colonies, building control, energy systems, life support
The latter half of the 20th century saw a remarkable increase in human capability to survive in outer space, culminating in the International Space Station which has been continuously occupied by human inhabitants for over 19 years. The current plan to establish a base on the lunar surface presents a new host of challenges. For example, the lunar surface acts as a large thermal mass, creating effective surface temperatures that increase and decrease substantially over the course of the lunar day.
Effective control algorithms will need to be designed that allow for managing this thermal energy, both for survivability of the human occupants, but also for energy storage, capture and use. The student will be responsible for designing and simulating a thermal model of the lunar surface (based on current literature) using existing MATLAB toolboxes to simulate the thermal effects on a habitat structure subject to this thermal load.
Further work will include design and analysis of thermal management. The student will experiment with modeling an array of climate control devices, such as boilers/chillers, coolant storage, radiators, geothermal probes, etc. to determine a feasible design for a lunar base. Control of these devices is done with model predictive control (MPC).
This project can be done both as a semester project or as a master's thesis.
The latter half of the 20th century saw a remarkable increase in human capability to survive in outer space, culminating in the International Space Station which has been continuously occupied by human inhabitants for over 19 years. The current plan to establish a base on the lunar surface presents a new host of challenges. For example, the lunar surface acts as a large thermal mass, creating effective surface temperatures that increase and decrease substantially over the course of the lunar day.
Effective control algorithms will need to be designed that allow for managing this thermal energy, both for survivability of the human occupants, but also for energy storage, capture and use. The student will be responsible for designing and simulating a thermal model of the lunar surface (based on current literature) using existing MATLAB toolboxes to simulate the thermal effects on a habitat structure subject to this thermal load.
Further work will include design and analysis of thermal management. The student will experiment with modeling an array of climate control devices, such as boilers/chillers, coolant storage, radiators, geothermal probes, etc. to determine a feasible design for a lunar base. Control of these devices is done with model predictive control (MPC).
This project can be done both as a semester project or as a master's thesis.
The goal of the project is twofold. The student will work towards a working simulation of a lunar habitat (using pre-existing MATLAB toolboxes to model the "building" dynamics) subject to an accurate thermal model of the lunar surface. Once this model is known, model predictive control techniques can be applied to control the temperature inside the living space of the habitat.
Secondly, the student will propose a feasible design of the thermal management system of a lunar base, complete with parameters of the various energy hub devices. MATLAB toolboxes can provide models of these energy hub devices, and once the design is known, the toolboxes will provide the dynamical model that one can use to design controllers for the habitat.
Interested students should have a working knowledge of MATLAB, and model predictive control. Please contact me with a CV and course transcripts (both undergraduate and graduate).
The goal of the project is twofold. The student will work towards a working simulation of a lunar habitat (using pre-existing MATLAB toolboxes to model the "building" dynamics) subject to an accurate thermal model of the lunar surface. Once this model is known, model predictive control techniques can be applied to control the temperature inside the living space of the habitat.
Secondly, the student will propose a feasible design of the thermal management system of a lunar base, complete with parameters of the various energy hub devices. MATLAB toolboxes can provide models of these energy hub devices, and once the design is known, the toolboxes will provide the dynamical model that one can use to design controllers for the habitat.
Interested students should have a working knowledge of MATLAB, and model predictive control. Please contact me with a CV and course transcripts (both undergraduate and graduate).
Dr. Mathias Hudoba de Badyn (mbadyn@control.ee.ethz.ch)
Francesco Micheli (frmicheli@ethz.ch)
Dr. Mathias Hudoba de Badyn (mbadyn@control.ee.ethz.ch)