Ventus Prototype Ionic Thruster

The Ventus thruster is a prototype design for creating thrust with no local emissions, no moving parts, and low noise output. The system ionizes surrounding air molecules by stripping away their electrons, then accelerates the resulting ions through a strong electromagnetic field to generate thrust. With no moving parts, it requires minimal maintenance and offers a longer lifespan. This makes it especially attractive for applications where reliability, noise reduction, and zero-emission is critical.

An ionic thruster works by creating an extremely high voltage difference between an anode (pictured in black) and a cathode (pictured in gray). The high voltage for the anode can vary depending on preferences and design choice, but our thruster used 400kV. Usually a voltage difference like this would cause a rapid electrostatic discharge (arcing) between the anode and cathode. However, if the anode is sufficiently sharp or ‘pointed’ and the ground is sufficiently dull or ‘round’ this arching does not occur. Instead the charged ions flow from the points of the anode to the rounded edge of the cathode like a waterfall. This flow of ions also interacts with the surrounding air, moving it in the same direction, and generating thrust utilizing Bernoulli's Principle.​

The final iteration of the Ventus is composed of three stages made up of six rings, three anodes (black) and three cathodes (gray), concentrically increasing in size. The path taken to arrive at this design was heavily influenced by optimizing the placement of the cathode and anode can be. Additional design parameters would also be diameter of these rings; this could be used to scale the design for specific applications.