Design, Development and Performance Evaluation of Automated Relay Controller for Solenoid Valve Operation During Static Test of Rocket Motors

This paper presents the design and development of an automated relay controller for pulse mode operation of solenoid valves for switching on / off the propellant flow to the combustion chamber of a thruster during static test. This paper enumerates the design of multi-channel solenoid valve controller using electro-mechanical relays operated through microcontroller. Two application software have been developed for automation purpose - one for simultaneous operation of multiple solenoid valves, as per required pulse sequence, developed in embedded C language and the other for configuration of the system, developed in MATLAB with a GUI. The performance of the designed system has been evaluated through various tests carried out in lab, field and during static tests.