Early Warning Health Monitoring System for Missiles

Currently, the measurement of environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, shock and vibration are used to monitor the integrity of stored missile and associated electronic support equipment. Unfortunately, it is generally a complex combination of these environmental parameters, accumulated over an extended period of time, that leads to deterioration in the performance of equipment. We propose a missile health monitoring system (which in addition to measuring temperature, humidity and shock) uses "early warning" modules (independent of the missile) to assess the degradation in performance of key missile components due to the combined affects of environmental exposure. This system will utilize an ultra-low-power, military-qualified, munitions-safe transceiver system to transmit data and receive commands. This communications unit will be capable of supporting interrogation and alarm modes of operation with the health monitoring system. Results from the accelerated testing of an "early warning optics module" are presented to demonstrate feasibility of the concept. Commercial applications include early indication of failure in critical medical and electrical systems such as heart pacemakers and electric power generation systems. Additionally, the system may be used to remotely monitor the health of infrastructure such as pipelines, bridges, tunnels and nuclear reactors that may be damaged by natural disasters.