Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

Tian Xia

Abstract

Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) is an advanced imaging technique used to map the permittivity of dielectric materials. ECT has diverse uses across various engineering fields, including industrial pipelines, the oil and gas sector, chemical manufacturing, and process monitoring, particularly for analyzing fluid flows. ECT can also be applied as a form of dielectric spectroscopy by measuring the response of materials under test (MUT) to changes in frequency, allowing for a detailed study of permittivity variations in a medium.One of NASA's Artemis missions is to locate and utilize in-situ resources. Transporting water to space is prohibitively expensive, with costs of $20,000 per kilogram, making the discovery of local resources crucial for the success of future missions. The lunar surface is commonly mapped using Ground Penetrating Radars (GPRs) operating in the 0.3 to 3 GHz range, which relies on effective reflectivity. However, GPRs cannot unambiguously detect water ICE trapped within the voids of the lunar regolith. To address this challenge, this project aims to develop a novel device capable of taking capacitive readings of MUT in the ultra-low frequency (ULF, Hz to MHz) range. The ULF range is desirable as water ICE has a stronger relaxation response <10KHz and the response is reduced by the temperatures seen in space, requiring frequencies ≤ 400Hz. The proposed device focuses on both hardware and software development, enabling precise measurement of dielectric properties through capacitive readings. By leveraging dielectric spectroscopy, the device will identify changes in permittivity to aid in the detection of water ICE and other volatiles within the lunar regolith. The development of this ULF capacitive sensor will provide a non-destructive method for detecting water ICE, which can be directly applied to electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) in future research. This innovation will significantly contribute to the success of NASA's Artemis missions by enhancing the ability to identify and utilize vital in-situ resources on the lunar surface/subsurface.

Language

en

Number of Pages

106 p.

Download

Share

COinS