SBIR Phase I: Intelligent Sensors for Health Management

This SBIR Phase I research proposal will develop intelligent sensors for structural state sensing. It will demonstrate the feasibility of a successful intelligent structural state sensor concept. The advantage of this approach is that, unlike traditional sensors, this technology does not require lead wires for signal interrogation, which overcomes one of the limitations for distributed sensing arrays required for structural health monitoring. The proposed sensors can be queried in real-time, making real-time strain or damage state monitoring possible. Furthermore, these sensors can be customized to sense various parameters including strain, temperature, moisture, and damage. The sensor size and distribution can be easily varied to create very large scale, distributed sensing systems. Finally, the separation of the sensors from the sensing system permits lower-cost solutions by making the sensors easily replaceable while keeping the sensing system in a protected environment. The goal of structural health monitoring (SHM) in aerospace applications is to use in situ sensing of internal and external state variables for optimizing real-time structural performance and for condition monitoring based maintenance. This technology allows for a new range of sensors to be developed for a host of parameters of interest and for a variety of applications. Such SHM systems can lead to lower maintenance costs, increase performance envelops, and prevent catastrophic failure. While initial commercial applications will be in the aerospace sector, the technology can be easily adapted for other structures. This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).