Experimental study on the thrust and the ratio of thrust to power of multi-points/grid ionic wind exciter

The thrust of ionic wind exciters in 19 points-grid and 31 points-grid electrodes configurations was measured in this paper by means of air suspension test platform without friction. Meanwhile, a control method was also provided for multipoint-grid ionic wind exciter. And then the study was done on the factors, e.g. the gap of point-grid electrodes, the spacing between points, the curvature radius of the point, and the voltage, current of corona discharge, all of which may affect the thrust character; so some methods for getting high thrust at low power were also proposed in order to improve the thrust and the thrust per unit power at the same time.