TECHNOLOGY DIGEST - Draper Laboratory

This year is the 10 th anniversary of Draper’s Technology
Digest. For the past 10 years, the Digest has included
over 60 of the best papers Draper staff members have published,
demonstrating the breadth of Draper Laboratory
technology. It has also included lists of all patents issued
to Draper staff members. I would like to take this
opportunity to thank the Media Services Group, who are
responsible for the publication of the Digest, for continuously
improving the visual look of every issue.
This year’s issue includes six papers that were published
and patents that were issued during the calendar year
2005. Committees established by the Vice President of
Engineering evaluated all papers and patents during this
period and selected those to be included in this issue, as
well as the winner of the annual Vice President’s Awards.
The papers in this issue can be divided into two groups
covering two growth areas of Draper technologies. Four
papers describe applications of Microelectromechanical
Systems (MEMS) for inertial instruments, the atomic
clock, and biomedical instruments. The other two papers
cover autonomous systems – one to guide a parachute, the
other for spacecraft rendezvous.
The first paper, “The Silicon Oscillating Accelerometer: A
High-Performance MEMS Accelerometer for Precision
Navigation and Strategic Guidance Applications” by Ralph
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10th An
D R A P E R T E C H
Introduction by Vice President, Engineering, Dr. Eli Gai
Hopkins, Joseph Miola, Roy Setterlund, William Sawyer,
and Bruce Dow was selected for the Vice President’s Award
for Best Paper published in 2005. This paper describes the
theory of operations, performance goals, and the fabrication
process for two silicon oscillating accelerometer
(SOA) designs, one for strategic missile guidance and one
for submarine navigation. Test data show that both
versions of the SOA met the performance required for
their respective applications.
The second paper, “Autonomous Guidance, Navigation, and
Control of Large Parafoils” by David Carter, Sean George,
Philip Hattis, Leena Singh, and Steven Tavan deals with
the design and flight testing of a guidance, navigation, and
control (GN&C) software package that enables precision
payload airdrop delivery using large parafoils. The
modular software design is structured to accommodate
payloads ranging from 2000 to 30,000 lb. The requirements
for low components cost resulted in a limited
onboard processor and a laptop personal computer. In
spite of these limitations, flight test data results showed a
miss distance of 200 m.
The third paper, “An Ultra-Low-Power Physics Package for
a Chip-Scale Atomic Clock” by Mark Mescher, Robert
Lutwak, and Matthew Varghese reports on the design of a
low-power, small-package, thermally-isolated physics
package for an atomic clock. This physics package will