STTR Phase I: RECONFIGURABLE SENSORS FOR AUTONOMIC MONITORING ACROSS FREQUENCY AND LENGTH SCALES

该小型企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段研究项目研究能够以自主方式感知多个长度和时间尺度的损伤的单个传感器贴片，使该传感器产品能够进入更广泛的市场，更重要的是，消除了结构健康监测和无损评估技术的技术障碍。所提出的研究解决了跨多个时间和距离尺度的监测结构完整性的问题，通过将三种检测方法集成到单个传感器设备中，结合可重构计算和能量收集，以产生无线的、独立的、多功能的传感器/致动器贴片。这里的创新是使用一个物理换能原理（压电效应）来同时感测和致动跨越大频率（时间）和长度尺度，结合可重构计算的概念来选择不同的感测尺度。这种传感器解决方案将大大提高从核电厂到航空工业等公用事业和行业的监测能力。所提出的传感解决方案将大大减少所需的传感单元数量，大大降低监控系统的成本和复杂性，从而使更多的行业能够寻求延长其产品寿命和安全性的监控解决方案。这里提出的增加能力将直接改善公共安全。

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I research project researches a single sensor patch capable of sensing damage across several length and time scales in an autonomous fashion, enabling this sensor product to reach a wider market and, more importantly, removing a technical barrier from the structural health monitoring and non destructive evaluation technologies. The proposed research solves the problem of monitoring structural integrity across multiple time and distance scales by integrating three detection methodologies into a single sensor device combined with reconfigurable computing and energy harvesting to produce a wireless, standalone, multifunctional sensor/actuator patch. The innovation here is the use of one physical transduction principle (piezoelectric effect) to simultaneously sense and actuate across large frequency (time) and length scales combined with concepts of reconfigurable computing to select different sensing scales. This sensor solution will vastly improve monitoring capabilities in public utilities and industries ranging from the nuclear power utilities to the aircraft industry. The proposed sensing solution would greatly reduce the required number of sensing units, substantially reducing the cost and complexity of monitoring systems, thus enabling more industries to seek monitoring solutions extending the life and safety of their products. The increased ability proposed here will directly improve public safety.