SMARTPART: A DATA LOGGING AND RETRIEVAL STRUCTURAL AND/OR REPARABLE COMPONENTS

THIS ADVANCED DEVELOPMENT EFFORT PROVIDES A PHYSICAL DEVICE FOR REAL-TIME EMBEDDING AND RETRIEVAL OF LOGISTICS DATA TO TRACK SELECTED STRUCTURAL PARTS ON AIRCRAFT (OR OTHER WEAPON SYSTEMS). THE SPECIFIC RESEARCH INNOVATION IS CALLED THE SMART-PART, WHICH IS A STAND-ALONE INFORMATION LOGGING DEVICE TO BE EMBEDDED ON A VARIETY OF WEAPON SYSTEM STRUCTURAL PARTS, AND WILL STORE AND RETRIEVE (EMIT) SPECIFIC DATA ON DEMAND. THE SMART-PART COULD BE EMBEDDED INTO A HOST COMPONENT AS A MODULE DURING MANUFACTURE, OR COULD BE BONDED ONTO THE COMPONENT AS A TEMPLATE DURING RETROFIT. IN EITHER FORM, THE SMARTPART IS EXTERNALLY POWERED AND INTERROGATED THROUGH A RADIO-FREQUENCY PROBE. THIS DEVICE WILL HAVE A NON-VOLATILE MEMORY CAPABLE OF DATA RETENTION FOR TEN YEARS. THIS EFFORT WILL DEFINE THE OPERATING CONSTRAINTS OF SUCH A DEVICE; METHODS OF DATA COMMUNICATION; AND MAN-MACHINE CONSIDERATIONS. THE INITIAL APPROACH INVOLVES A RADIO FREQUENCY (RF) COMMUNICATION AND POWER TRANSFER BASED ON PRIOR SUCCESSFUL RESEARCH EFFORTS BY THE OFFEROR.