This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II Project targets development of a new approach to building wireless sensor infrastructure ? energy storage systems, electrical distribution, and packaging - that allows dramatic miniaturization of wireless sensor nodes, eliminates most restrictions on their shape and is environmentally-friendly. Accomplishing these goals requires development of innovative new approaches to fabrication of mesoscale electronic circuitry and thin film energy storage batteries. Laser-based approaches to making very fine feature conductor patterns, vias, and mechanical structures in a variety of organic and inorganic materials commonly used in the electronics industry will be utilized. New battery chemistry will also be refined to allow fabrication of miniature, flexible, thin film batteries with energy storage densities substantially exceeding those of any battery currently on the market. Together these innovations will allow nearly an order of magnitude reduction in volume of wireless sensing devices. Combination of the laser processing and battery technologies developed in this project will offer an approach to miniaturization of almost any wireless sensor that is easily adaptable to most sensor designs.
The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will be found in many areas of everyday life. After an extended incubation period, wireless sensing networks are experiencing a surge of market growth. A market opportunity for more than 100 million sensor nodes is projected for 2019. Potential applications come from areas as diverse as infrastructure monitoring for bridges, roadways and pipelines, lighting and HVAC control in buildings, electrical metering, parking management, patient monitoring, elderly care, seismic sensors, industrial process control, crop water management, and home automation. In the health care area alone, wireless sensor networks could potentially produce and estimated $25 billion savings world wide. Feasibility of many potential applications will be strongly influenced by the availability of miniaturized sensor nodes with suitable form factors that can be operated without maintenance for extended periods. Targeting miniaturization and power sources, the proposed project addresses and solves key historical bottlenecks in sensor network implementation. It will have a significant impact on these large developing markets, as well as spin-off applications in medical and consumer electronics.
Wireless sensing networks are experiencing a surge of market growth, and a market opportunity for more than 100 million sensor nodes is projected for 2019. Feasibility of many potential applications will be strongly influenced by the availability of miniaturized sensor nodes with small form factors that can be operated without maintenance for extended periods. Targeting miniaturization, this project addressed a key bottleneck in sensor network implementation. It could have a significant impact on developing sensor markets as well as spin-off applications in medical and consumer electronics. Potomac Photonics has developed laser-based approaches to making very fine feature conductor patterns and vias in electronic materials and developed techniques for fabricating encapsulated and miniaturized electronic assemblies. With support from this NSF SBIR PhII grant the company has applied its technology to fabrication of miniature sensor infrastructure platforms that provide power, data processing and communication at a wireless sensor node. These infrastructure components often determine the size and cost of a wireless sensing devices. Using grant funds, Potomac has optimized fabrication processes, developed equipment for electronic and environmental testing of fabricated assemblies, optimized power sources and built prototype systems that have proven to be very useful in exploring commercial feasibility. The key building blocks in Potomac’s approach to miniature circuit fabrication are miniature modules comprising densely-packed electronic components of the smallest sizes that are interconnected by fine feature silver conductors fabricated using nanoparticle silver pastes. These component assemblies are encapsulated in an epoxy casting to produce a miniature module like that shown in Figure 1. These modules can then be attached to small printed circuit boards or flat cables or used as independent functional blocks. Figure 2 shows a small wireless gas sensor in which all of the signal processing and control circuitry is contained in a miniature Potomac module. In Figure 3 a miniature electronics module is attached to a flat cable that contains 25 conductors in a width of less than 1 cm. This capability is well suited to fabricating sensors that might be contained in wristbands or attached to the body. During the grant period,Potomac has fabricated gas sensors, accelerometers, gyros, magnetometers, microphones and thermal sensors in miniature formats. Alternative rechargeable and primary battery power sources have been thoroughly characterized, and techniques developed for minimizing power consumption. Prototype body orientation sensors and CO sensors have been constructed for commercial applications, and a foundation has been established for further miniaturization of wireless sensing systems.
