New Technology Developed at U for Use to Remove Space Impurities

(Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/planet-earth-220201/)

A new technology described as an “omnimagnet” was developed by two University of Utah professors and will now be used by a New Hampshire-based robotics company to help clean up space debris.

The company, Rogue Space Systems Corporation will use the new technology on their robots in a variety of ways such as repairing satellites or deorbiting space debris.

According to Jake Abbott, professor of mechanical engineering who helped develop the omnimagnet, the technology consists of three electromagnets that create a magnetic field to capture space debris and stop it from correcting or reducing the orbit of objects in space.

Tucker Hermans, professor at the school of computing, also helped develop the technology.

Abbott said when a satellite or piece of space debris needs to be accessed to make repairs or reduce its orbit, robotic equipment risks breaking up the space debris or robotic arm, creating more debris. More complications arise when trying to synchronize two objects orbiting the earth to reach them.

“But the problem with these objects is that they have been flying around the Earth’s magnetic field and from their own dynamics for a long time, potentially,” Abbott said.

Omnimagnets were developed to solve some of these problems — synchronizing a robotic satellite with a piece of space debris and then stopping the object from falling. Abbott said several people had developed solutions to reduce the object’s orbit, but stopping its fall was still a problem.

“The problem is it’s just this one step where this thing falls, and you don’t know how to hold it securely to reduce its orbit,” Abbott said.

Hermans said the technology could also be applied to objects in space that are not magnetic, as well as to space debris for which the team operating the robot has not yet been designed and whose exact dimensions are unknown. Hermans has focused his research on this type of problem.

“I’ve worked with Professor Abbott on several other projects, and we were thinking, well, what it means to do object manipulation where we haven’t designed the object yet,” Hermans said. “At the same time, you know, he’s teaching me about this eddy current phenomenon where we can manipulate, you know, a conductive nonmagnetic object using a magnetic field.”

Abbott said it has long been known that magnetic objects can be manipulated using magnets, but what’s special about this technology is that they can manipulate non-magnetic objects in space. Plus, they can do more than just push and pull objects using these omnimagnets — they allow six degrees of movement.

“I just got really intrigued by the question of whether it’s possible for us to do that,” Abbott said. “The same level of metal manipulation that is not magnetic.”

Abbott said his interest in manipulating nonmagnetic objects also coincided with the rising issue of space debris, which ultimately led to the new technology being used by Rogue s.

Hermans said he was happy that their technology could be used and hoped that their research would continue to produce positive results for the community.

“We’re really hoping that this will be a huge, long-standing study that we’re doing over the next few years that hopefully can make a real contribution to society and not just write a few papers.”

According to Abbott, the work being carried out is funded by two separate grants from the US Space Force as well as a grant from the National Science Foundation.

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@chandlerjoost

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