Low-power smart sensor for laminar and turbulent flow detection in avionics application

Avionics is very demanding and specific field of research according to sensor and system design. In systems designed for such applications not only reliability in very low temperatures is key aspect, but also system geometry, energy usage and its weight. During preliminary tests of different rotor blades designs some special measurement of a gas (air) flow type around blades is crucial. Following research is focused on design, implementation and optimization of smart sensor for detection of flow type around rotor blades. Key aspect of design is to integrate sensor system with blade in a way that rotor geometry and rotor mass is virtually not affected. Such requirement implicitly defines also some criteria of sensor system itself. The best solution for such sensor system design is to use small, low-power, batteryless sensor nodes and wireless data transmission. Such design offers not only very good flexibility and ability to expand the system, but also offers good reliability thanks to using local, compact sensor nodes. During a development of such system various optimizations are needed including energy harvesting, microcontroller selection, radio stage design and data transmission protocols. The term "smart sensor" should be understood as a sensor node capable for measuring of pressure and temperature data, capable for processing it in-situ and wirelessly send information (quantitative and qualitative) about gas flow nature. It distinguishes presented design from classical pressure sensor node.