ARRA statement: This CAREER proposal will be awarded using funds made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5), and meets the requirements established in Section 2 of the White House Memorandum entitled, Ensuring Responsible Spending of Recovery Act Funds, dated March 20, 2009. I also affirm, as the cognizant Program Officer, that the proposal does not support projects described in Section 1604 of Division A of the Recovery Act.
This CAREER project is formulated to study the multiplexing and networking of passive wireless sensors for engineered sensor skins. The proposed multi-disciplinary research is focused to resolve three major challenges of sensor skins, i.e. electrical wiring, serial sampling, and information overloading. This project strives to establish a methodology for the systematic design and effective interrogation of large scale sensor networks. Equipping man-made systems with the intelligence of detecting small irregularities over a large area could fundamentally change how they function and interact with the environment. The proposed sensor skin will enable the transition of SHM paradigm from crack detection to damage prognosis, allowing more efficient use of our national resources and infrastructures. If successful, this will transform the sensor technologies in two critical research fields, namely engineered sensor skins and structural health monitoring Successful demonstration of passive wireless sensor skins will have profound impacts on broad research areas such as mechatronics, robotics, bio/medical research, and wearable healthcare, etc. The proposed research will be integrated into an educational program that shifts the education paradigm from lecture-based single-discipline teaching to student-centric multidisciplinary learning. Learning prospective will be broadened by involving graduate students and undergraduate minority students. Workshops will be offered to inspire visiting K-12 students to pursue higher education in engineering.
