Force sensing of an asymmetric dielectric barrier discharge using mechanical resonators

Current research into force sensing of a single dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator using mechanical resonators is examined. DBD plasma actuators, using alternating current, generate pulses of plasma at frequencies in the kHz range. The body force from the plasma changes with each pulse cycle, and can be measured and profiled using remote sensing from sensitive laser interferometry. Instead of simply measuring displacement of the actuator, different harmonics of the base frequency are measured to a high degree of precision using mechanical resonators. The frequency-dependent displacement data obtained from the resonator measurements are used to compute time-varying force generated by the plasma discharge. An example resonator is demonstrated to amplify motion more than 100X, and three harmonics with representative resonators are shown to accurately reconstruct the force profile of a DBD actuator.