Beneath the waves near Key Largo, FL, an underwater lab called Aquarius provides a safe harbor for scientists to live and work for weeks at a time. For NASA, Aquarius provides an environment that is analogous to the International Space Station (ISS) and the space shuttle. To maintain Aquarius, NASA recruited Invocon of Conroe, TX, to develop wireless sensor technology that monitors and measures environmental and structural parameters inside the lab.
The project included the design, fabrication, and demonstration of a battery- powered, miniature wireless temperature sensor. NASA and Invocon agreed to take Invocon's existing wireless network communication system and combine it with various microelectro- mechanical system (MEMS) sensors. The innovation consisted of a PC interface unit, a graphical user interface, and multiple wireless sensors that are each equivalent in size to a stack of five quarters.
Upon completion of the miniature wireless sensor, NASA's Johnson Space Center applied it to the space shuttle to acquire temperature data from several fundamental locations in and around the shuttle crew compartment and avionics equipment. The sensor system has flown and operated successfully on more than 20 space shuttle missions. Further use of the technology is being investigated for monitoring carbon dioxide concentrations onboard the ISS.
Invocon's wireless sensor system has been turned into a commercial product called MicroWIS-CO2, a wireless, remote, low-power, carbon dioxide data acquisition system for near-static sensing and recording applications.
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