The mission is ambitious. Capturing gravitational waves, that is, those ripples of space-time discovered and confirmed in September 2015 on the basis of Einstein’s theories, which will revolutionize studies on the cosmos and the origins of the Universe.
It is called LISA, it will be composed of three satellites and will be launched no earlier than 2030, while in the meantime the preparatory mission LISA-Pathfinder, already active in space between 2015 and 2017, has carried out all the technological and scientific tests in view of the true and its operational mission.
The LISA mission is European, from ESA, and its triad of satellites will operate 50 million kilometers from Earth. All this, thanks to the collaboration of Italian organizations and research centers. One of the most important components, to ensure that the measurement and detection of the waves can be started, is a mechanism that will be located inside the satellites, on which also Davide Vignotto, a young Treviso, PhD at the University will work. degli Studi di Trento, which won the fifteenth edition of the Italian Mechatronics Prize. This is the competition of the Mechatronic Group of Unindustria Reggio Emilia in collaboration with Nòva and co-organized by Community, created to promote the culture of mechatronic technology in the various sectors of the national mechanical industry.
Davide Vignotto, PhD at the University of Trento, who was awarded the fifteenth edition of the Italian Mechatronics Prize
The project, entitled “Experimental analysis and analytical modeling of a release mechanism for a space mission”, was carried out during the PhD program in collaboration with OHB Italia SpA, a company of the European space group OHB-SE, for the purpose to analyze a fundamental mechanism of the LISA mission: “It is an apparatus-mechanism partially inserted inside a container, which in turn is located inside the three satellites” – explains Davide Vignotto – “Thanks to the zero conditions gravity, the container we made, designed by OHB in collaboration with the University of Trento, will release a cubic object weighing 2 kilograms, which will float inside the container, and which will be used to detect gravitational waves. It will be a major undertaking, and all the equipment will have to be calibrated to perfection. The three satellites, at a distance of 50 million kilometers from the Earth, will in turn be two and a half million kilometers away from each other, and will communicate by means of powerful laser beams. It will be the largest wave capture antenna ever built ».
“The work carried out during the PhD course concerns a particularly complex and fascinating research field, such as that of face sensors in the context of one of the most ambitious space projects of the future relating to a space observatory to detect gravitational waves” – he commented the President of the Mechatronic Group, Alberto Rocchi – «This is a frontier research of the highest scientific level carried out in collaboration with a leading European company in the Space Economy sector. The research has made it possible to achieve important scientific results but also concrete applicative implications for the redesign of the analyzed components ».
«I thank Professor Bortoluzzi» – Vignotto says – «Without his precious contribution I would not have achieved this award. Mechatronics? As the term recalls, it is the technology of the present and the future, which blends mechanics and electronics. And it is a very precious sector for the aerospace sector, important in the aerospace field and beyond ».
Now in its fifteenth edition, the competition has been open this year to projects (thesis, research doctorate, scientific publication or ad hoc study) carried out by undergraduates and graduates of Mechatronic Departments of national universities in collaboration with a company . This is a brand new format, created to enhance young people, give strong emphasis to the synergies between companies and the world of research, and act as a further stimulus to strengthen the relationships between the Confindustria system and the academic world, and to all that ecosystem that promotes research activity in the field of mechatronics.