Robert Huber (engineer)

In 1924, Huber became Technical Director of the Bureau Technique Pescara where he supervised the design of nearly 30 different sizes and types of free-piston engine and acquired the nickname "Mr Free Piston". The first was the AC-2,^[2] running on petrol (gasoline). The second was the AC-3, which was similar but ran on diesel fuel. Eighteen types of free-piston engine were built and tested.

In 1932, Huber read a book by Professor Lomonosov about diesel locomotives. He also heard of a proposal by Petro Shelest for turbines driven by compressed air. This information gave him the idea of developing the free-piston gas turbine. Several of these were designed but not built. Finally, in 1938–39, the world's first free-piston generator was built. It used two G-30^[2] machines and drove an 800 kW alternator.

Huber stayed at Bureau Technique Pescara (which became Société d'études mécaniques et énergétiques^[3] (SEME) in 1939) until 1962. During his time there, thousands of free-piston engines had been sold. Huber continued to work on free-piston engines until at least 1967.

Huber was a pioneer in the development of common rail fuel injection in the 1960s.^[4]

Robert Huber has about 40 patents related to free-piston engines. A few examples are listed below:

• US2452194 (A), published 1948-10-26, Free piston machine ^[5]
• US2645213 (A), published 1953-07-14, Free piston engine having hollow pistons ^[6]
• US2943438 (A), published 1960-07-05, Improvements in free piston engine and gas turbine power plant ^[7]
• US2990680 (A), published 1961-07-04, Devices for starting and stopping free piston machines and in particular free piston auto-generators ^[8]