What is it about?
Ion-discharge thrusters need thousands of volts, which normally means bulky high-voltage converters — fatal for microrobots. We built an ion discharge-driven thruster powered directly by a lithium niobate piezoelectric transformer: the crystal itself steps up voltage electrically, replacing heavy magnetic converters with a lightweight, compact, solid-state element. The integrated thruster–transformer unit achieves corona discharge and measurable thrust with dramatically reduced mass and volume.
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Why is it important?
Putting the voltage step-up inside a piezoelectric crystal removes the heaviest component of an ion thruster system. For aerial microrobots, mass saved on power electronics is mass converted into payload and control authority.
Perspectives
Crystals amplifying voltage felt like alchemy the first time we measured it — then it felt like the obvious way every microrobot should be powered.
Professor Wei Li
Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: An Ion Discharge-Driven Thruster Based on a Lithium Niobate Piezoelectric Transformer, Micromachines, February 2025, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/mi16030277.
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