Autonomous Self-powered (ASP) Structural Health Monitoring system

Acellent Technologies proposes to develop a self-powered structural health monitoring system for use in monitoring of mission critical structures such as missiles or combat vehicles in the field. The proposed system will be completely autonomous having the capabilities for (1) Energy harvesting for self-power generation, (2) Integrated sensors for robustness, (3) Sensor self-calibration for improved reliability and (4) Real-time damage detection in both metal and advanced composite material structures. The basis for the development will be Acellent's SMART Layer technology that utilizes a network of sensor embedded in a thin dielectric film to query and monitor the integrity of a structure. Phase I will focus on proving feasibility of utilizing the energy harvested by a piezoelectric sensor network for structural health monitoring. The development will be conducted in close collaboration with The Boeing Company. The developed system will be extremely portable, will provide for convenience and automation of inspection and can reduce structural life-cycle costs.