No-Power MEMS Trigger Sensors for Missile Health Monitoring

"To reduce total life cycle costs of Army munitions, state-of-the-art health monitoring technologies are being applied in the diagnosis and prognosis of missile system health. Due to size and cost, MEMS technology has the potential to enable advanced healthmonitoring systems. However, energy storage is a premium, and even though MEMS devices consume extremely small amounts of power, the power budget is still too tight to easily meet system requirements. Therefore, the use of no power sensors and limitdetectors is potentially invaluable in the development of low-maintenance health monitoring. The Phase I effort analyzed and selected potential no power sensor concepts that can be applied to inertial, chemical, temperature, and humidity trigger leveldetection. This proposed Phase II effort will prototype, test, and integrate those no-power sensors. The approach can result in advanced functionality including device arrays, programmable limits, and settable latching modes."