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 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
Mobitrum has started the development of virtual sensor test instrumentation in Phase I for characterization and measurement of ground testing of propulsion systems. It is clear that future wide availability of smart sensors will significantly reduce the cost and time required to design, repair, or modify sensor systems through modular and re-configurable capability. The Phase II effort will complete the development of: 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 distributed test instrument. The transducer senses the physical quantity being measured and converts it into an electrical signal. Then the signal is fed to an A/D converter, and is ready for use by the processor to execute functional transformation based on the sensor characteristics stored in TEDS. In order to maximize the data efficiency, a plug-and-play is required to interface with traditional sensors to enhance their identity and capabilities for data processing and communications. Virtual sensor test instrumentation is built upon open-system architecture with standardized protocol modules/stacks easily to interface with industry standards and commonly used software such as IEEE 1451, MATLAB, and LabVIEW.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Ground testing of propulsion systems is a critical requirement to enable NASA's New Vision for space exploration. The proposed virtual 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 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
We believe the smart sensor will have tremendous potential for commercial market. That is because global revenues for smart pressure, flow, force/load, and temperature sensors with signal conditioning amplification capability collectively totaled about $3.4 billion, according to the latest market survey. 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 such as (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 Biochemical Biomedical and Life Support Biomolecular Sensors Computational Materials Computer System Architectures Control Instrumentation Data Acquisition and End-to-End-Management Data Input/Output Devices Database Development and Interfacing Earth-Supplied Resource Utilization Electromagnetic Thrusters Expert Systems Feed System Components General Public Outreach Gravitational Guidance, Navigation, and Control High-Energy Highly-Reconfigurable Human-Computer Interfaces Human-Robotic Interfaces In-situ Resource Utilization Instrumentation Integrated Robotic Concepts and Systems Intelligence K-12 Outreach Large Antennas and Telescopes Manned-Manuvering Units Metallics Microwave/Submillimeter Mission Training Mobility Multifunctional/Smart Materials On-Board Computing and Data Management Operations Concepts and Requirements Optical Particle and Fields Perception/Sensing Pilot Support Systems Portable Data Acquisition or Analysis Tools Portable Life Support Power Management and Distribution Production RF Radiation Shielding Materials Semi-Conductors/Solid State Device Materials Sensor Webs/Distributed Sensors Simulation Modeling Environment Software Development Environments Software Tools for Distributed Analysis and Simulation Structural Modeling and Tools Substrate Transfer Technology Suits Telemetry, Tracking and Control Teleoperation Testing Facilities Testing Requirements and Architectures Thermodynamic Conversion Thermoelectric Conversion Tools Training Concepts and Architectures Ultra-High Density/Low Power Waste Processing and Reclamation Wireless Distribution