Wireless capacitive pressure sensor operating up to 400°c from 0 to 100 psi utilizing power scavenging

Author

Scardelletti, M.C. ; Ponchak, George E. ; Harsh, Kevin ; Mackey, Jonathan A. ; Meredith, Roger D. ; Zorman, C.A. ; Beheim, Glenn M. ; Dynys, Frederick W. ; Hunter, Gary W.

Author_Institution

NASA Glenn Res. Center, Cleveland, OH, USA

fYear

2014

fDate

19-23 Jan. 2014

Firstpage

34

Lastpage

36

Abstract

In this paper, a wireless capacitive pressure sensor developed for the health monitoring of aircraft engines has been demonstrated. The sensing system is composed of a Clapp-type oscillator that operates at 131 MHz. The Clapp oscillator is fabricated on an alumina substrate and consists of a Cree SiC MESFET, thin film inductor, Complex chip capacitors and Sporian Microsystem capacitive pressure sensor. The resonant tank circuit within the oscillator is made up of the pressure sensor and a spiral thin film inductor, which is used to magnetically couple the wireless pressure sensor signal to a coil antenna placed over 1 meter away. 75% of the power used to bias the sensing system is generated from thermoelectric power modules. The wireless pressure sensor is operational at room temperature through 400°C from 0 to 100 psi and exhibits a frequency shift of over 600 kHz.

Keywords

LC circuits; Schottky gate field effect transistors; aerospace engines; antennas; capacitive sensors; capacitors; coils; condition monitoring; energy harvesting; oscillators; pressure sensors; thermoelectric power; thin film inductors; wireless sensor networks; Clapp-type oscillator; Cree SiC MESFET; Sporian Microsystem capacitive pressure sensor; aircraft engines; coil antenna; complex chip capacitor; frequency 131 MHz; frequency shift; health monitoring; magnetic coupling; power scavenging; pressure 0 psi to 100 psi; resonant tank circuit; spiral thin film inductor; temperature 400 degC; thermoelectric power modules; wireless capacitive pressure sensor; wireless pressure sensor signal; Capacitance; Monitoring; Oscillators; Temperature measurement; Temperature sensors; Wireless communication; Wireless sensor networks; Capacitive pressure sensor; Oscillator; SiC; high temperature; wireless transmission;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Wireless Sensors and Sensor Networks (WiSNet), 2014 IEEE Topical Conference on

Conference_Location

Newport Beach, CA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-2298-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WiSNet.2014.6825503

Filename

6825503