The H5 guide system - the latest innovative guide system at the ILL

The H5 program with the complete rebuild of the guide system and the upgrade or renovation of all instruments leads to a tremendous increase of the instrument performances. The improvement was obtained both in terms of more useful flux and upgrade of the different instruments (e.g. higher field density for IN15). In addition, the industrial application instrument D50 offers an addition to the ILL instrument suite (see p. 27 in this issue). With the commissioning of the new spin echo spectrometer WASP in 2016, the H5 program will be completed and a considerable improvement for the ILL instrument park will be finalized

Optimization environment definition for beam steering reflectarray antenna design

Reflectarray antennas are low-profile high-gain systems widely applied in the aerospace industry. The increase in their application is leading to the problem of getting more advanced performance while keeping the system as simple as possible. In these cases, their design cannot be conducted via analytical methods, thus evolutionary optimization algorithms are often implemented. Indeed, the design is characterized by the presence of many local minima, by high number of design variables, and by the high computational burden required to evaluate the antenna performance. The purpose of this paper is to develop, implement, and test a complete Optimization Environment that can be applied to achieve high scanning capabilities with a reflectarray. The design of the optimization environment has been selected to be flexible enough to be applied also with other different algorithms

Smart Boost Converter for Battery Charging from Discontinuous Voltage Power Source in Underwater Environment

A novel control technique for switching converters in battery recharging applications is presented. The proposed technique makes the converter act as an impedance matcher, thus achieving maximum power transfer from source to load. In particular, the application of this technique to a boost converter is analyzed. This novel control technique proves to be useful for energy scavenging purposes in marine environment, especially for battery recharging from discontinuous power sources, such as waves and marine currents. AUV's, underwater sensors and data loggers can be fitted with this device and a small water turbine, in order to extend their lifetime