Robert A. Freitas Jr. All rights reserved. Many specific design issues must next be confronted, including tank configuration, rotor and glucose engine placement, subsystem scaling, and the redundancy level required to produce acceptable system reliability.
Centralized systems have less complexity, but less redundancy hence less reliability.
The final design represents a compromise among many competing factors. 3.1 Power Onboard power is provided by a mechanochemical engine that exoergically combines glucose and oxygen to generate mechanical energy to drive molecular sorting rotors and other subsystems, as demonstrated in principle in a variety of biological motor systems. Sorting rotors absorb glucose directly from the blood and store it in a fuel tank. Oxygen is tapped from onboard storage. The power system is scaled such that each glucose engine can fill the O 2 tank from a fully empty condition in 10 seconds, requiring a peak continuous output of 3 x 10 -13 watts.