There are a number of potential non-NASA commercial applications for the proposed technology: solar panels, windows, windshields, aircraft coatings, blades, optical devices, pharmaceutical devices and installations, drapes, blinds, household surfaces, engine components, filters, etc. All of these devices could potentially benefit from inherent dust removal systems. An early application of greatest interest to Poly Adaptive, LLC, is to develop electronic dust shied (EDS) systems for commercial solar panels. Since large-scale solar installations usually are located in sun-drenched desert areas where dry weather and winds sweep dust into the air and deposit it onto the surface of solar panels, the need for self-cleaning these surfaces is critical. The EDS technology should certainly be one of the potential candidates to solve this problem. The EDS technology is vital for the success for any ESMD program in which spacecraft or robotic systems are exposed to dusty environments throughout the solar system. Dust agglomeration has been a major deterrent to overall mission duration and has reduced reliability and adversely affected mission success. Since there are no dust-free surfaces within the solar system, it cannot be assumed that, simply because there is no atmosphere, dust cannot deposit onto a surface. Furthermore, regardless of the robotic system sent to a planetary system, there will always be systems or subsystems that cannot tolerate dust, including power subsystem components such as solar panels, optical lenses for instruments and cameras, thermal radiators, batteries, etc. Therefore, there will always be a NASA need for dust removal systems, and the EDS has been proven to be the best technology to address this critical issue.
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