Adaptive RuGgedized Ubiquitous Sensor Network for Aircraft Health Monitoring (ARGUS-4AHM) System

The Adaptive RuGgedized Ubiquitous Sensor Network for Aircraft Health Monitoring System (ARGUS-4AHM) provides flexible non-intrusive wireless connectivity in NASA aerospace vehicles with integrated monitoring capability, environmental effects resilience, and high maturity. Specifically, this technology: (1) aims to improve traditional instrumentation where issues are weight, wire routing to penetrate aircraft structures, long down-times, wiring labor, etc.; (2) expands the reach of avionic networks by connecting devices through boundaries without penetrations using non-intrusive, safe, and secure wireless Ultrasonic Transceiver Modules (UTMs); (3) is reliable and robust, where the energy and data transfer processes are resilient to large temperature swings and vibrations as common for aircraft operation; (4) is designed for aerospace materials (composites, aluminum), standard avionic communication buses (e.g. ARINC 429), transparent and plug-amp;-play deployment, and common sensor interfaces; and (5) provides flexibility with two configurations: Bus Passthrough and Node-On-ComBus. The first allows to extend multiple avionics data and power channels through a wall acoustically without wires or RF in a way that is invisible to the network nodes. The Node-On-ComBus shares these features but also enables deployment of sensors and health monitoring features in previously inaccessible spaces. Phase II tasks involve: (1) full development and implementation of Passthrough configuration for composites; (2) extending Passthrough configuration to support multiple ARINC 429 buses concurrently; (3) full development and implementation of Node-On-ComBus; (4) adding measurement and instrumentation capabilities; (5) expanding the Node-On-ComBus with health monitoring capability and customizing to NASA systems; (6) packaging and environmental design; (7) advanced and complementary features for an integral networking and monitoring solution; and (8) demonstrating the complete system.