CAREER: Integrated Research and Education in Self-powered Micro-sensing for Embedded and Implantable Structural Health Monitoring

这个教师早期职业发展（CAREER）奖的研究目标是研究新型无电池，自供电的微传感器，可以在能量收集的基本限制下运行（皮瓦-千瓦功率消耗）并且因此可以用于长期监测民用，一种新型的压电驱动的电离碰撞热电子注入（p-IHEI）该原理利用压电换能器和浮栅晶体管之间的接口物理中固有的计算原语。p-IHEI原理用于机械使用统计数据（应变、应变率、加速度、停留时间和频谱统计数据）的自供电计算，这些统计数据可用于疲劳测试。也是一种新型压电驱动谐波雷达，其中压电元件清除环境机械噪声以放大和反射任何撞击射频信号的谐波。这一原则绕过了许多信号处理步骤，在传统的射频识别技术，并有可能超过100米的询问距离。更广泛的影响电池少的微型传感器将被开发，这可能成为下一代的一个组成部分？智能结构可以在任何灾难性故障发生之前自我诊断损伤和疲劳。该项目的外联部分侧重于在用于结构健康监测的电子传感系统领域建立一个电气-土木工程论坛。该论坛被用来培训研究生和本科生以及属于代表性不足社区的学生。

The research objectives of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award is investigating novel battery-less, self-powered micro-sensors that can operate at fundamental limits of energy harvesting (picowatt-nanowatt power consumption) and hence can be used for long-term monitoring of fatigue in civil, mechanical and biomechanical structures.Intellectual Merit A novel piezoelectricity driven ionized-impact hot electron injection(p-IHEI) principle which exploits the computational primitives inherent in the interface physics between piezoelectric transducers and floating-gate transistors. The p-IHEI principle is being used for self-powered computation of mechanical usage statistics (strain, strain-rate, acceleration, dwell-time and spectral statistics) which are useful to prognosticate fatigue. Also a novel piezoelectricity driven harmonic radar where the piezoelectric element scavenges ambient mechanical noise to amplify and reflect harmonics of any impinging radio-frequency signals. This principle bypasses many of the signal processing steps in a conventional radio-frequency identification technique and has the potential for interrogation distances beyond 100m.Broader ImpactsBattery-less micro-sensors will be developed which could become an integral part of the next generation of ?smart" structures that can self-diagnose damage and fatigue before the occurrence of any catastrophic failure. The outreach component of this project is focused on developing an electrical-civil-engineering forum in the area of electronic sensing systems for structural health monitoring. This forum is being used to train graduate and undergraduate students and students belonging to under-represented communities.