Micro Air Vehicle(MAV) Flight Data Sensors for Practical Flow Control

The purpose of the proposed Air Force Phase I SBIR program is to demonstrate the feasibility of ultra-lightweight conformal sensor elements and patterned arrays based on Metal Rubber™ gossamer nanocomposite materials. The small size, low weight, conformability and simplicity of these sensors make them suitable for MAV and other small vehicle applications. Metal Rubber™ is formed by the layer-by-layer self-assembly processing of advanced polymers with selected metal nanoclusters. This allows the combined control over multiple constitutive properties and mechanical transduction behaviors at the molecular level. By proper design, the Young’s modulus and mass density may be made very low, and the electrical conductivity near the percolation threshold made very high. Such a combination allows the transduction of pressure-induced compression and skin friction-induced tangential strains into electrical signals. NanoSonic would use such novel, low weight materials to design, fabricate and evaluate the performance of conformal single-element and multi-element sensor pressure and skin friction sensor arrays. The conformal MEMS-type sensors would be evaluated through fundamental laboratory tests and airflow analysis during the Phase I program. NanoSonic has an Alliance Agreement with the Lockheed Martin Corporation and would work in cooperation with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics colleagues during Phase I and Phase II.