On June 5, 2022, good news came from the “Zhuri project” research team led by academician Duan Baoyan of Xi’an University of Electronic Science and technology. The world’s first full link and full system ground verification system of space solar power station successfully passed the acceptance of the expert group. This verification system has broken through and verified many key technologies such as high-efficiency condensing and photoelectric conversion, microwave conversion, microwave emission and waveform optimization, microwave beam pointing measurement and control, microwave reception and rectification, and smart mechanical structure design.
The achievements of the project are generally at the international advanced level, among which the main technical indicators such as omega optical electromechanical integration design, microwave power wireless transmission efficiency with a transmission distance of 55 meters, microwave beam collection efficiency, power quality ratio of high-precision structural systems such as condenser and antenna are at the international leading level. This achievement has support and guidance for the development of the next generation microwave power wireless transmission technology and space solar power station theory and technology in China, and has a broad application prospect.
At the same time, Duan Baoyan, academician of Xi’an University of Electronic Science and technology, put forward the design scheme of Omega space solar power station. Compared with the American alpha design scheme, this design scheme has three advantages: the control difficulty is reduced, the heat dissipation pressure is reduced, and the power quality ratio (the power generated by the unit mass of the sky system) is increased by about 24%.
The supporting tower of the “Zhuri project” is a 75m high steel structure. The verification system mainly includes five subsystems: Omega focusing and photoelectric conversion, power transmission and management, RF transmitting antenna, receiving and rectifying antenna, control and measurement. Its working principle is to determine the angle of inclination of the condenser lens according to the solar height angle. After receiving the solar light reflected by the condenser lens, the photovoltaic cell array at the center of the condenser lens converts it into DC power. Subsequently, through the power management module, the electric energy converted by the four condensing systems is collected to the intermediate transmitting antenna. After the oscillator and amplifier modules, the electric energy is further converted into microwave and transmitted to the receiving antenna in the form of wireless transmission. Finally, the receiving antenna converts the microwave rectification into DC power again and supplies it to the load.
The space solar power station can become the “space charging pile” in the orbit in the future. He pointed out that at present, small and medium-sized satellites need to carry huge solar panels for charging, but their efficiency is low, because they cannot be charged when the satellite moves to the earth’s shadow area. If there is a “space charging pile”, the satellite will no longer need a huge solar panel, but only a pair of retractable receiving antennas, just like a gas station.
Post time: Aug-15-2022
