Research facilities

SSL home - Research facilities

Several world-class facilities comprise the SSL. The Middeck Active Control Experiment (MACE) facility provides students, staff and faculty with a state-of-the-art facility for the conduct of structural system identification and control experiments. The high bay, clean room environment accommodates a low frequency electric-pneumatic suspension system, signal processing data analyzers, and several realtime computers for LTI and adaptive control. The Interferometry facility consists of the testbeds and support equipment necessary for conducting nanometer and sub-arcsecond phasing and pointing control commensurate with the needs of space-based visible interferometry. Testbeds include a 3.5 meter tetrahedral truss structure and a pointing-phasing optics bench. Support equipment includes laser interferometers, delay lines, siderostats, piezoelectric actuators, realtime computers, and miscellaneous optics. The ASTROVAC facility provides a 10^-5 torr quality vacuum test chamber with a diameter of 12 feet and a height of 16 feet. Thermal, free-fall, clean room, and metrology capabilities are also provided. The CASL facility is a state-of-the-art computational facility for studies ranging from orbital mechanics to rarefied gas dynamics.

Controlled Structures Teaching Facility

This experimental setup was designed to be used in teaching the MIT course 16.243 - Dynamics of Controlled Structures. It is a simple but realistic mechanism which motivates all aspects of designing a high performance dynamic structure: detailed modeling of the structure including disturbance and performance, model reduction, structural redesign, damping treatment, and active control implementation. In addition, the facility is suitable for implementing passive and active isolation and applying command shaping techniques for servo applications.

hub-beam picture
Hub-Beam Experiment Drawing

The experiment is built around a clamped-free aluminum beam mounted on a rotating hub. Actuators: two electrical motors on the hub and PZT patches on the beam. Sensors: optical encoders, laser position sensor, accelerometers, strain gauges, PZT sensors. A real-time computer is available for active control.