Miniature Corrosion Sensor Hub to Monitor Difficult-to-Access Aircraft Structure with Complex Geometry.

MSI specializes in design and commercialization of miniature intelligent low power instrumentation systems that process data from sensors in scripted Bayesian algorithms in a “rules engine” application. Recently MSI received a US patent a new monitoring methodology for difficult-to-access aircraft structure with complex geometry. Our product will incorporate a tiny processor and a power scavenger circuit in a tape that supports ribbonized sensitized fiber strands. The ribbonized sensitized strands will extend around, under, and on a structure such as a magnesium gearbox housing, a highly complex geometry casting up to 3 cu ft in size. Deterioration or damage to the ribbonized strands will indicate, probabilistically, that damage is occurring to the item under test. The sensor hub will incorporate a low power electronic circuit called the Embeddable Programmable Instrumentation Circuit (EPIC) which is designed for creating stand-alone low power monitoring systems for aircraft and ground vehicle CBM and PHM. The EPIC processor is very low power, capable of being powered by a energy scavenger circuit. The new module will support intermodule wireless communication, and provide interrogation and wireless offload of the state of health of the equipment being monitored to the inspector’s handheld or PC.