Development of a low‐power wireless acoustic emission sensor node for aerospace applications

Abstract

Summary Acoustic emission (AE) is the spontaneous release of energy caused by the growth of damage, the monitoring of which gives an indication of the presence of damage within a structure. The current standard for AE localisation is difficult to apply in a low‐power system as sensors must either be wired together or Node's time synchronised, which is power intensive. This paper proposes the use of a method of bonding three piezoelectric sensors in a small triangular array, which has previously been shown by Aljets et al. to be capable of locating sources in simple structures. In this prior work the wave's A0 mode was used to predict the angle of arrival and the distance the wave has travelled through single sensor modal analysis. This paper presents the development of hardware to apply this technique and testing that showed artificial sources could be located in simple plates to a good level of accuracy. The addition of complexity to structures significantly reduced accuracy. This prompted hardware modifications to use the S0 mode for angle prediction. Testing showed that this significantly improved performance in a complex composite structure. The power consumption of the device is very low, consuming 0.33 mW in sleep mode, 17.44 mW whilst waiting for an event and 38 mW to record, process and transmit an event. This level of consumption has the potential to be self‐powered via energy harvesting.

Numerical Modelling of Carrier Transport in Organic Field Effect Transistors

“…At recent years, the interest with low-power consumption sensors increases, where massive studies focus on cost-effective devices for sensing different environmental as well as medical parameters glows up [1][2][3][4][5]. Different electronic organic-based devices (ex: light-emitting diodes and transistors) have been studied and researched extensively seeking for lower weight, sustainability, flexibility, and lower energy consumption [6,7].…”

Optimal Array Design and Directive Sensors for Guided Waves DoA Estimation

“…Among all methods of AS localization, three main typologies can be identified: Inverse methods [ 4 , 5 ]; Hyperbolic positioning [ 6 ]; Methods which use Directions of Arrival (DoAs) estimation [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]; …”

“…Different strategies which use one or more clusters for the AS estimation have been studied and tested [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Among these, the first two [ 7 , 8 ] use just one cluster to locate an AS.…”

“…Different strategies which use one or more clusters for the AS estimation have been studied and tested [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Among these, the first two [ 7 , 8 ] use just one cluster to locate an AS. Nevertheless, in order to estimate the AS distance, they require to detect two modes (typically the A0 and S0 modes) and compute their time difference on the sensors.…”

Performance evaluation of a thermoelectric generator‐coupled composite phase change material for intermittent aerodynamic heat sources

“…To reduce the maintenance cost of high-speed aircraft over its lifetime, the demand for wireless health monitoring sensors is increasing tremendously. 1,2 Operation of sensors usually requires large amounts of electric energy, which is usually supplied by batteries and power supplies. 3 However, the complexity of their design and the inconvenience of operation have been challenging, encouraging people to search for other approaches of energy supply.…”