Ultra-light weight and low-cost in-situ system for damage detection of ballistic protective armor

Acellent Technologies proposes to build an innovative and cost-effective ultra portable system for detection of damage in personnel ballistic armor inserts. The system upon will provide in-situ capability to detect damage in armor inserts by personnel in the field. Current techniques commonly used in determining the health of the ballistic protective armor such as X-ray, may be time-consuming, expensive, and dependent in large measure on human intervention. The proposed integrated and automated built-in health monitoring system has the potential to greatly relieve this inspection burden, increase the useful life of armor inserts, while providing for increased safety at a considerably low-cost. The system will utilize Acellent’s SMART layer technology, based on a built-in network of sensors and actuators embedded on a thin dielectric carrier film, to query, monitor and evaluate the condition of the ballistic inserts. The monitoring layer can either be surface-mounted or embedded in the insert during fabrication itself. The system will automatically scan the structure to detect cracks occurring in the ceramic plate and interlayer delaminations. Sensory data from the monitoring layer collected through wired or wireless means during inspection will be interpreted and processed by a hand-held portable diagnostic system running intelligent diagnostic software.