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

这项教师早期职业发展（Career）奖的研究目标是研究新型无电池、自供电的微型传感器，这种传感器可以在能量收集的基本极限（皮瓦-纳瓦功耗）下工作，因此可以用于土木、机械和生物力学结构的长期疲劳监测。一种新的压电驱动电离冲击热电子注入（p-IHEI）原理，该原理利用了压电换能器和浮栅晶体管之间界面物理固有的计算基元。p-IHEI原理被用于机械使用统计（应变、应变率、加速度、停留时间和谱统计）的自供电计算，这些统计对预测疲劳是有用的。还有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。该原理绕过了传统射频识别技术中的许多信号处理步骤，并有可能在100米以上的距离内进行讯问。无电池微型传感器将被开发出来，它可能成为下一代“智能”结构的一个组成部分，可以在发生任何灾难性故障之前自我诊断损坏和疲劳。这个项目的外联部分的重点是在结构健康监测电子传感系统领域发展一个电气-土木工程论坛。这个论坛被用来培训研究生和本科生以及属于代表性不足群体的学生。

The research objective 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. 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.Battery-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.