Batteries Not Included: New Sensor Technology Promises Benefits from Maine to the Moon
Contact: Ali Abedi (207) 581-2231; Tom Weber (207) 581-3777
ORONO — NASA is on a mission to fly wireless in space one day, and a University of Maine researcher is developing the technology that he believes can help make that happen.
Ali Abedi, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is working on a new kind of battery-free wireless sensor communication system that he says can perform in harsh environments where the battery-powered sensors now used in NASA’s space shuttle cannot function.
The new sensors can be used as monitors inside the shuttle engine and on the spacecraft’s exterior when reentering Earth’s atmosphere, Abedi says. The system will also allow NASA to reduce the miles of bundled sensor wires and connectors that now add so much unwanted weight, expense and potential for failure to every space flight.
“The weight of all the wiring is a major issue for the space shuttle,” says Abedi, whose research is being funded by a three-year, $360,483 grant from NASA. “There are wired sensors everywhere in the space shuttle. All of them need batteries for power, but batteries explode in extremely hot temperatures and don’t work in very cold temperatures.”
Instead of batteries, he says, power for the new system comes from a radio frequency signal that is transmitted to the sensors, which then beam it back with pertinent monitoring data. Abedi likened the process to that of the radar guns police use to check for speeders.
“But we can transmit the beam to hundreds of sensors at once to get all the combined data,” says Abedi, who runs the UMaine wireless sensor network lab known as WiSe-Net. And because the system is wireless, a sensor can be moved out the way when astronauts need room to make repairs on the shuttle. The sensor can then be easily reinstalled, like a standard plug-and-play computer device.
The system uses patented high-temperature sensors designed and produced by Mauricio Pereira da Cunha, a UMaine associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and Abedi’s co-investigator on the project. NASA has asked both researchers to serve as consultants for the agency’s wireless sensor tag group.
Abedi says the battery-free sensors, which require no maintenance, could also be embedded as temperature and gas monitors in the habitation domes being studied for a future moon colony. Embedded sensors could also be effective, he says, in monitoring the health of bridges, buildings, dams, tunnels or other structures here on Earth.
The Maine Department of Transportation is interested in the new wireless communication design for use not only in bridges of the future but in very old existing ones, Abedi says, where expensive wired, battery-powered sensor systems may not be economically feasible.
The three-year project will create an opportunity for an educational and research collaborative involving several fields of study, he says, including mechanical and civil engineering for the bridge concept. A couple of Ph.D students will work on the system at UMaine, along with six qualified undergraduates who will receive training at Mainely-Wired LLC, a state broadband provider. Three summer student internships will also be available at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
“I want the students to go through their program here with excitement, and let them see for themselves how the real thing works in the field,” Abedi says.