Advanced Automated Wireless Structural Health Assessment

For this Phase I Navy SBIR project, Luna Innovations, Inc. proposes to develop and demonstrate the laboratory prototype of a sparse network of large area ultrasonic wireless sensors permanently mounted on or embedded into an advanced materials structure. These sensors can be used for monitoring a number of health-critical parameters such as location, extent, and severity of defects including fiber breaks, cracks, delaminations and impact damage in composites, change of material parameters due to fatigue, corrosion or aging, as well the time and location of damage onset. Additionally, the system can assess the overall component performance - an important integral property that does not necessarily correlate with the detection of defects. Luna Innovations possesses broad expertise in the field of ultrasonic non-destructive evaluation technology and wireless sensors. Based on proprietary ultrasonic technology and on successful Luna Innovations research programs, the instrument concept builds on decades of award-winning research by the PI while at NASA that now can be brought to commercial uses with the Luna philosophy of invent, build and commercialize which has led to six new spin-off companies in the past 4 years.