Miniature Wireless Sensors Size Up to Big Applications

About this technology

Overview

To maintain the Aquarius underwater research facility, the International Space Station, and the space shuttle as safe, healthy living/research habitats for its personnel-while keeping costs in mind-NASA, in 1997, recruited the help of Invocon, Inc., to develop wireless sensor technology that monitors and measures various environmental and structural parameters inside these facilities. This project, funded through a Johnson Space Center Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract, focused on developing wireless sensors to help cut back on the integration costs associated with wired sensors. It included the conceptual design, fabrication, and demonstration of a battery-powered, miniature, wireless temperature sensor. NASA and Invocon agreed to take Invocon's existing wireless network communication system and combine it with various microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors. The innovation consisted of a PC interface unit, a graphical user interface, and multiple wireless sensors that are each equivalent in size to a stack of five quarters. The resulting sensor system has flown and operated successfully on numerous space shuttle missions, and further use is being investigated for monitoring carbon dioxide concentrations onboard the ISS, in the crew's sleeping quarters, and in regions of reduced airflow. The commercial offspring is a wireless, remote, low-power, carbon dioxide data-acquisition system for near-static sensing and recording applications. Invocon has also spun off several next-generation" MicroWIS products that are configured for applications other than carbon dioxide sensing. The latest of these products, the MicroWIS-XG, can be used for sensing environmental, temperature, strain, and pressure parameters, for example. In the area of construction, one of these next-generation systems was used to monitor external grout pressure during the building of three tunnels in the Netherlands.