Wireless Parachute Pressure Sensor Measurement System

The proposed Phase II SBIR effort results in development of a wireless pressure sensor system for characterizing the temporal evolution of the pressure field during deployment of parachutes and also measuring pressures across different fabric materials. The primary outcome of this project is a fully-integrated media isolated micropackaged ultra-high sensitivity pressure sensor module with a size of 5mmx5 mmx0.6mm, and weight of <0.1 gram that is embedded in a parachute fabric and can measure, store the data in onboard memory, and transmit over a wireless data link to a base reader. The proposed fully integrated scalable sensing system is enabled by innovation in several areas including ultra-high sensitivity ultra-thin CMOS-MEMS pressure sensor, ultra-low power CMOS interface circuitry including on-chip data storage, and wireless link.