Autonomous Underwater Sensing of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

The goal of this STTR (Phase I and II) is to develop a miniature, low power system to detect chemical and biological warfare agents and related industrial chemicals in seawater and the air immediately above the water surface. The system is to be deployed in the Navy's Remote Environmental Monitoring UnitS (REMUS) Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). Ionfinity, together with its partners, the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Pacific Environmental Technologies, has designed such a system and demonstrated components in Phase I of this STTR. The key elements are the miniature Rotating Field Mass Spectrometer (RFMS) using the patent-pending Soft Ionization Membrane (SIM) and the undersea sampling and analysis system. Under Phase I, Ionfinity has demonstrated the ability to detect DMMP, an analog to Sarin gas, in vapor and liquid phase and in liquid phase Malathion, a neurotoxin insecticide and trichloroethylene, benzene and toluene, industrial chemicals that pollute water supplies. Biological samples were also measured. Phase II proposes to build and integrate the system and demonstrate to the Navy in the REMUS AUV.