Development of Energy Efficient, Multi-Channel, Pulsed Plasma Generator for High-Speed Flow Control by Localized Arc Filament Plasma Actuators, Phase I

The research team at The Ohio State University has been developing technologies to suppress jet noise using localized arc filament plasma actuators and are in the process of demonstrating this type of technology at NATR facility at NASA Glenn Research Center. The localized arc filament plasma actuators developed at OSU are the only actuators that can be used currently for active control of flow and noise in high Reynolds number and high-speed flows, such as jets, mixing layers, combustors, cavity, etc. However, the lack of availability of appropriate plasma generator has been a hindrance to this technology development. One of the challenges is designing and developing a power supply which can derive up to 64 actuators. The current Phase I SBIR program will explore some new technologies for the design of such a power supply. The research team will focus on building the power supply for NASA during the Phase II program and also will make significant efforts in commercializing this product by making it much more energy sufficient, user friendly, and compact.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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