NASA SBIR 2005 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
MOBITRUM CORPORATION
8070 Georgia Avenue, Suite 209
Silver Spring ,MD 20910 - 4934
(301) 585 - 4040

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Ray   Wang
rwang@mobitrum.com
8070 Georgia Avenue, Suite 209
Silver Spring, MD  20910 -4934
(301) 585 - 4040

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Smart sensor combining with embedded metadata and wireless technology presents real opportunities for significant improvements in reliability, cost-benefits, and safety for remote testing and measurement. Adding robust and self-construct network protocol for routing will further simplify testing installation process and increase test network reliability. The realization of a practical smart sensor system requires the synthesis of several technologies. One must bring together knowledge in the fields of sensors, data processing, distributed systems, and networks. The IEEE 1451 standard provides a basic communications link for sensor nodes, but provides no methods specific to programming a node's data processing resources. An interface must be defined for dynamic programming of sensor nodes. Mobitrum is proposing a virtual sensor test instrumentation for characterization and measurement of ground testing of propulsion systems. The tool includes: (1) common sensor interface, (2) microprocessor, (3) wireless interface, (4) signal conditioning and ADC/DAC, and (5) on-board EEPROM for metadata storage and executable software to create powerful, scalable, re-configurable, and reliable embedded and distributed test instrument. Virtual sensor is built upon an open-system architecture with standardized protocol modules/stacks easily to interface with industry standards and commonly used software such as IEEE 1451, TEDS, Java, TinyOS, TinyDB, MATLAB, and LabVIEW.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Ground testing of propulsion systems is a critical requirement to enable NASA's New Vision for space exploration. The proposed vitual sensor test instrumentation will enable a cost effective remote testing and health monitoring through wireless sensor network. Mobitrum anticipates the following applications that NASA will benefit from the proposed technology: (1) Data analysis, processing, and visualization for Earth science observations, (2) Rocket engine test, (3) Remote test facility management, (4) Field communications device for spatial data input, manipulation and distribution, (5) Sensor, measurement, and field verification applications, (6) RFID for identification and tracking, (7) Condition-aware applications, (8) Location-aware applications, (9) Biometric identification applications, (10) Data collaboration and distribution applications, and (11) Wireless instrumentation for robotic manipulation and positioning for audio and visual capture, and real-time multimedia representation.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Mobitrum expects smart sensor technology will enable more home applications for energy control and security monitoring provided by Internet service providers as value-add services. In order to be deployable by service provider, the smart sensor technology has to be embedded within home appliances that have networking capability for remote monitoring and control over Internet. Mobitrum expects IEEE 802.11g and Bluetooth will be two leading wireless technologies to transport sensor data in/out of a smart sensor. The proposed virtual sensor test instrumentation may apply to one of the following: (1) Home control, (2) Energy management for cost saving, (3) Security (intruder detection), (4) Safety (sensing), (5) Utility ? remote meter reading, (6) Building automation systems ? real-time monitoring and control of security and surveillance systems, alarms, HVAC, etc., (7) Manufacturing and distribution ? industrial automation using RFID, and (8) Health care ? wireless monitoring equipment.

NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING

Air Revitalization and Conditioning Airport Infrastructure and Safety Architectures and Networks Attitude Determination and Control Autonomous Control and Monitoring Autonomous Reasoning/Artificial Intelligence Biomedical and Life Support Biomolecular Sensors Computer System Architectures Control Instrumentation Controls-Structures Interaction (CSI) Data Acquisition and End-to-End-Management Data Input/Output Devices Database Development and Interfacing Earth-Supplied Resource Utilization Expert Systems Fluid Storage and Handling General Public Outreach Guidance, Navigation, and Control Highly-Reconfigurable Human-Computer Interfaces Human-Robotic Interfaces Instrumentation Integrated Robotic Concepts and Systems Intelligence K-12 Outreach Manipulation Microwave/Submillimeter Mission Training Mobility On-Board Computing and Data Management Operations Concepts and Requirements Perception/Sensing Pilot Support Systems Portable Data Acquisition or Analysis Tools Portable Life Support Production RF Sensor Webs/Distributed Sensors Simulation Modeling Environment Software Development Environments Software Tools for Distributed Analysis and Simulation Sterilization/Pathogen and Microbial Control Substrate Transfer Technology Telemetry, Tracking and Control Teleoperation Testing Facilities Testing Requirements and Architectures Tools Training Concepts and Architectures Ultra-High Density/Low Power Wireless Distribution