Wireless Sensor Network for Flight Test

Flight test programs have always been challenged with having to add a sufficient number of transducers and instruments to make meaningful measurements without having an adverse impact on the operation and performance of the vehicle being tested. Transducer and instrumentation wiring is intrusive and labor intensive, often requires vehicle modifications to support, is subject to reliability concerns, and adds a significant amount of weight when hundreds of transducers are required. Invocon proposes a Wireless Sensor Network system that will significantly reduce or eliminate the wiring used today to transmit transducer data. Wireless sensor nodes will make the same measurements acquired today with wired transducers, and in some cases will use exactly the same transducer. The key difference is that transceiver units will collect data via RF communication from the wireless sensor nodes, eliminating the need for wired interconnectivity to relay data, and provide the opportunity to collect data from large numbers of sensors. An interface module collects the sensor data and converts the data into a format that facilitates data recording and/or transmission to a ground station via telemetry.

The ease of integration, system flexibility, and scalability makes the wireless sensor system an attractive tool for the NASA flight test organizations, regardless of whether hundreds of channels of measurements are needed or only a few channels. These benefits can also be realized by the other NASA test organizations, such as wind tunnels, propulsion test facilities, and spacecraft and launch vehicle testing, where similar test and measurement challenges exist.

Perhaps the two most exciting aspects of this project from the commercialization point of view are the ability to produce a wireless sensor platform that can be used throughout the flight test community, and to produce a wireless network that can support hundreds of different measurement channels in a single platform. Beyond NASA, the flight test community in the USA also includes DoD organizations and commercial aircraft companies. Satellite environmental testing and similar lab testing activities are also strong candidates for wireless sensors because of the complexity of using large numbers of transducers.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.