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Active TRL 2 (started at 2, targeting 3)
Scientific instruments are key to NASA missions and sensors are an integral part of such instruments. Developing sensors that are not only miniaturized in size, weight, and power (SWaP) but also offer intelligence will revolutionize scientific instruments of the future. In this project, we propose to investigate a new paradigm for intelligent instrument design by integrating neuromorphic devices with chemical sensors using nanomaterials including transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) and graphene. Tasks 1 and 2 will address the fabrication, functionalization, and benchmarking of chemitransistors enabled by atomically thin TMDs and graphene. Within these tasks, we will depart from traditional sensing architectures that employ only two terminals by introducing a third gating terminal with electrostatic control over the semiconducting channel material. The addition of a gating terminal provides an opportunity for drastic improvements in sensor endurance while reducing the power requirements for normal sensing operation. Additionally, the chemitransistor architecture will be functionalized with novel nanomaterials including Carbon nanotubes (CNT), nanowires, quantum dots (QD), and other nanoparticles to realize improvements in the sensitivity and selectivity of the proposed sensing platform. The first two tasks will produce a population of ultra-low power sensors with varied receptive fields. Tasks 3 and 4 will focus on the fabrication of a highly miniaturized in-situ multi-sensor platform enhanced by bio-inspired hardware- based machine learning algorithms. An ensemble of on-chip probabilistic, Bayesian, and artificial neural networks created using neuromorphic hardware primitives will collect differently functionalized sensor output data and perform inference to vastly improve the selectivity of our sensing platform beyond the capabilities of any single chemitransistive sensor. To fully address the challenges set forth in section 10.4, ‘Sensors, Electronics, and Devices’ of the 2015 NASA Technology Roadmap, proposed tasks 1 through 4 will spur innovation at the material level, the device architecture level, and the computational circuit level. Enhancing the performance of scientific instruments will generate a greater science return for a given cost envelope in prospective space missions where the reduction of size, weight, and power is a crucial design consideration.
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