Self-Powered Miniature Acceleration Sensor

To address the Air Force need for wearable sensors for blast/impact effects quantification, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new self-powered miniature acceleration sensor (SMAS). The proposed SMAS wearable system is based on multiaxis inertial integrated acceleration sensing and powerless blast/impact autodetection that enables effective captures of blast/impact energy. POC’s SMAS meets the size and power requirements requested by the Air Force for blast/impact head acceleration measurement because its unique power management prolongs operation life, and combined with power harvesting and simple system architecture, requires no maintenance or care in a just-wear-and-forget-it way. POC’s extensive experience in wireless electromyographic and inertial tracking systems to monitor the head and torso shocks to soldiers will allow us to successfully develop SMAS technology. In Phase I POC will design a preliminary laboratory prototype, and demonstrate functional key SMAS components in a testbed, showing that a SMAS system can accurately record the state of impact/blast. In Phase II POC plans to develop a fully functional packaged SMAS system and test it for real-world implementation.