SENSORS: Broad-Bandwidth High-Resolution MEMS Array of Inertial Sensors with Embedded Optical Detection

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of this project is to develop a technology for robust and low maintenance cost sensor network capable to detect accelerations below a micro-g in a very wide frequency bandwidth (above 1,000 Hz). Sensor networks with such performance are critical for navigation, seismology, acoustic sensing, and for the health monitoring of civil structures including micro vibrations of high-tech facilities. A new technology based on batch fabrication of an array of high sensitivity accelerometers, each utilizing Fabry-Perot cavity of embedded optical detection, will be developed. The unique feature is that no local power source is required for each individual sensor, instead one global light source is used, which generates a b4roadband optical signal repaginating through the optical fiber network from sensor-to-sensor, thus carrying information through the network and providing an input signal to each individual sensor within the network. The global out put combined at the end point of the network and the health condition of the network is assessed in real-time based on the arrived "rainbow" of data. The project takes advantage of the combined cross-disciplinary expertise in design, packaging and fabrication of MEMS, integrated optics and optical sensing), partial differential equations, wave propagation theory, and multi-physics modeling, system identification and damage detection for the health monitoring systems of civil engineering structures of the three investigators involved. The proposed device will be designed, fabricated, packaged, and tested using unique infrastructures developed by this interdisciplinary research group. Educational goal is to assimilate micro-engineering concepts into departmental core courses, develop a series of interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate courses that would integrate concepts from different disciplines, and, even more importantly, emphasize the application of this integrated knowledge to practical engineering design. These curriculum development efforts will be in coordination throughout the campus-wide programs and in cooperation with local high-tech industries.