A Magnetically-Suspended Mirror Driving Mechanism for FTIR

The authors have developed a magnetically-suspended mirror driving mechanism for a greenhouse gas monitoring interferometer to be mounted on an airplane. An atmosphere observation program with the aim of global monitoring of greenhouse effect gasses such as C02 gas is being planned in Japan. The greenhouse gas monitor is based on a Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (FTJR) using a Michelson interferometer scheme. Therefore. the greenhouse gas monitor requires a linear driving mechanism. The magnetically-suspended mirror driving mechanism has such advantages as high pointing accuracy and vibration isolation. since it is driven wi thout contact. According to the functional test results, this mechanism has been confirmed to have excellent performances. This paper presents the structure of the mechanism and the functional test results.