Passive Wireless Temperature Sensors with Enhanced Sensitivity and Range

This proposal describes the development of passive surface acoustic wave (SAW) temperature sensors with enhanced sensitivity and detection range for NASA application to remote wireless sensing of temperature distributions in composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) and development flight instrumentation (DFI) for test facilities for large area composite component validation testing. ASR&D has developed a novel SAW device structure that is more sensitive to temperature variations than previous SAW temperature sensor devices, that will function with the high S/N interrogation electronics being develop by ASR&D for longer range SAW sensor measurement. These demonstrated high sensitivity temperature sensors can be individually coded for identification, to operate in a multi-sensor system consisting of multiple passive solid-state SAW sensors that can be interrogated remotely using RF signals, and that respond with a signal that encodes both the sensor's identity as well as measurements of temperature. The proposed Phase I effort will modify the current temperature sensor devices to incorporate coding, build and test these sensors (wired), verify compatibility of the sensors with the wireless interrogation system electronics, and demonstrate wireless temperature sensing of multiple uniquely identifiable sensors.