Design and verification of a negative resistance electromagnetic shunt damper for spacecraft micro-vibration

Active control techniques are often required to mitigate the micro-vibration environment existing on board spacecraft. However, reliability issues and high power consumption are major drawbacks of active isolation systems that have limited their use for space applications. In the present study, an electromagnetic shunt damper (EMSD) connected to a negative-resistance circuit is designed, modelled and analysed. The negative resistance produces an overall reduction of the circuit resistance that results in an increase of the induced current in the closed circuit and thus the damping performance. This damper can be classified as a semi-active damper since the shunt does not require any control algorithm to operate. Additionally, the proposed EMSD is characterised by low required power, simplified electronics and small device mass, allowing it to be comfortably integrated on a satellite. This work demonstrates, both analytically and experimentally, that this technology is capable of effectively isolating typical satellite micro-vibration sources over the whole temperature range of interest.