Ultra Low Cost Wireless Corrosion Sensor for Ground Vehicles

Corrosion severely impacts the life cycle cost, operational life, and readiness of Army ground vehicles. The Army spends an estimated $2 billion to $2.5 billion per year addressing corrosion-related issues with ground vehicles. Low cost and easy to use corrosivity sensors are required to help the Army effectively manage corrosion and reduce vehicle life cycle costs. Knowledge of cumulative environmental severity and corrosion protection system condition for individual vehicles will enable more effective prediction of asset life and reduce waste generation from vehicle depainting and repainting. To meet this critical military need, Luna Innovations is developing an ultra low cost corrosivity sensor system specifically designed for the rigorous operational environment of Army ground vehicles. The proposed sensor system integrates proven thin film corrosivity sensor technology to create a robust, ultra low cost, and highly adaptive monitoring platform. The corrosivity monitoring system is being developed for easy integration into vehicle structures and to provide for a quick non-contact sensor reading that is easy to interpret. It is expected that the low cost sensor could be applied fleet-wide and that data collection could occur at any maintenance level including Corrosion Service Centers using either handheld or automated drive through portals.