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See also ~Military and ~Patrol hardware!
Epsilon series Business Sensor FS4B Hardware:
[001]~ Droppable
[002]~ Sensor technology in ecological research and environmental monitoring
[003]~ NASA and drilling Mars
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[001] FS4B Hardware ~ Business Sensor: ~ Droppable
Droppable:
~ FS sensor hardware has been designed and packed so that FC helicopter can drop it
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[002] FS4B Hardware ~ Business Sensor: ~ Sensor technology in ecological research and environmental monitoring
Sensor technology in ecological research and environmental monitoring is being explored:
Wave1: Specific In situ Sensor Technologies!
Wave2: Whale tag; suction caps used to attach it on whales!
Wave3: Microprofiler for lakes!
~ note that sensor platform ascends and descends !
Wave4: Smart Pebbles
~ Crossbow and UC Berkeley's Computer Science Department are commercializing microsensor motes,
~ a sort of "smart pebbles" first developed at Berkeley with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).
~ The MICA product line includes sensor and processor boards and wireless communication processor modules
~ that enable rapid development of wireless sensor networks.
~ At present, MICA units can detect
~ ultra-small vibrations,
~ acoustic noise,
~ magnetic disturbances,
~ light,
~ temperature
~ and proximity.
~ Video,
~ acoustic,
~ and magnetic modules are expected shortly.
~ There is also a sensor interface port for incorporation of chemical, biological, and other specialized sensors.
Wave5: Smart Dust
~ Smart Dust - The science/engineering goal of the Smart Dust project is to demonstrate
~ that a complete sensor/communication system can be integrated into a cubic millimeter package.
~ This involves both evolutionary and revolutionary advances in miniaturization, integration, and energy management.
~ We aren't targeting any particular sensor, in fact there is no direct funding for sensor research in the project.
~ We're funded by DARPA, so we will demonstrate Smart Dust with one or more applications of military relevance.
~ In addition, we're pursuing several different applications with commercial importance,
~ and we've got a long list of applications to work on if we only had the time.
~ Nb: project finished!
Wave6: Center for Embedded Networked Sensing; UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles)
Wave7: Cone penetrometer technology (CFT)
~ provides continuous, subsurface, screening-quality data (physical, electrical, and chemical measurements) to aid in site characterization;
~ minimizes disturbance to the subsurface,
~ as no drilling fluids are used and hole diameters are quite small (1-2")
~ this also minimizes migration of contaminants from shallower to deeper horizons during pushing
~ is relatively nexpensive when compared to drilling and sampling;
~ offers the advantage of real-time data analysis so that push locations can be selected based upon the results of holes already pushed;
~ can be adapted for new sensors to measure various types of chemical contaminants and other physical characteristics of the subsurface;
~ can be used to install piezometers for soil vapor and ground water measurements;
~ can be used to collect soil and water samples;
~ is safer than conventional drilling because worker exposure is minimized due to faster subsurface access and generation of minimal amounts of waste;
~ cannot be used at all sites, i.e. all lithologies;
~ however, recent advances in technology have expanded the envelope of sites for which the technology is applicable;
~ provides rapid, cost-effective assistance in the definition of contaminant plumes
~ enabling more accurate placement of remediation systems and monitoring wells.
~ The cone penetrometer consists of a steel cone that is hydraulically pushed into the ground
~ while m situ measurements are continuously collected and transported to the surface for data interpretation and visualization,
~ Standard cone penetrometers collect stratigraphic information using sensors for cone tip pressure and sleeve friction.
~ The ratio of the tip resistance to the sleeve friction provides information that can be used to classify soil type.
~ Other sensors available include
~ two-axis inclinometers,
~ acoustic cone (for identification of soil type),
~ temperature,
~ pH,
~ radioactivity (gamma),
~ and geophones for measurement of P (pressure) and S (shear) waves (surface to borehole seismic).
~ Recent advances in sensor technology have expanded cone penetrometer capabilities to measurement of total petroleum hydrocarbons!
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[003] FS4B Hardware ~ Business Sensor: ~ NASA and drilling Mars
NASA and drilling Mars concepts have been explored:
Wave: ARC-MarsMole-Hi.mov; drilling animation
Mission:
~ NASA scientists are modifying a sensor so it could look for signs of martian life by reading data from a soil-burrowing 'mole' capsule.
~ Researchers at NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley are adapting the Earth observation instrument
~ for potential use during future Mars missions in a search for water, ice, organics and minerals in the soil.
~ The instrument previously flew over Hawaii in 1997 aboard a remotely piloted, solar-powered airplane, scanning vegetation and land.
~ We are developing an instrument package to observe and analyze martian soil properties down to five meters depth," Stoker said.
~ Called the Mars Underground Mole, the entire system, including sensors, would burrow underground like a mole.
~ The Mole is shaped like an artillery shell .
~ An internal sliding weight will drive the Mole into the soil.
~ Once dug in, the Mole will connect by a tether to an apparatus on the surface.
Tether:
~ The tether will include power wires and a fiber optic cable that will transport light collected underground to a spectrometer
~ on the surface above.
~ The Mole concept is derived from a device the European Space Agency designed to collect subsurface samples on Mars,
~ according to Stoker.
~ To enable the Mole to analyze subsurface soils,
~ the NASA team is adding a sensor to the Mole that has been used for more than a decade
~ to obtain spectral imagery of locations on Earth from aircraft.
~ The instrument, called a Digital Array Scanning Interferometer (DASI),
~ was part of the payload on the remotely piloted, solar-powered Pathfinder aircraft
~ that flew over the Hawaiian islands scanning reefs off the Napali coast, vegetation on Makaha Ridge, the Alakai swamp and agricultural fields.
~ For a Mars mission, the instrument will be stationed on the planet's surface,
~ connected to the Mole by a fiber optic cable in the tether.
Light Pipe:
~ "The fiber optic cable is a 'light pipe' that will transport light to the interferometer
~ ,which is at the heart of the instrument," said William Hayden Smith at Washington University, St. Louis,
~ who is leading instrument development.
~ An interferometer measures light interference to precisely determine its spectral properties, he explained.
~ The spectral images produced by DASI are composed of many different colors ranging from visible to infrared light.
~ Each point of the image has spectra, rainbow-like arrays representing energy and light wavelengths that scientists can analyze.
~ Like a fingerprint or a DNA profile, this 'spectral data' from the light reflected from a substance enables scientists to identify it.
~ Researchers say they must be ready to identify possible water, ice, organics and minerals beneath the surface of Mars.
Laser:
~ A lamp or laser source will illuminate soil samples through a window in the Mole.
~ The system for collecting light underground and transmitting it to the surface is the primary new development used in the instrument.
~ "One advantage of adapting the DASI for a Mars mission is that this instrument can be built very compactly," said Philip Hammer,
~ a scientist at NASA Ames and co-investigator on the project.
~ Because the DASI operates with fixed optics and no moving parts, it also is very stable under severe conditions.
Mole:
~ The entire Mole will weigh only about 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) and be about 20 inches (50 centimeters) long
~ "We expect to be ready to integrate the DASI instrument with the Mole by the end of 2004," said Stoker.
~ We will then conduct laboratory and field tests of the system," she added.
~ Laboratory chamber tests designed to simulate potential conditions on Mars will take place at NASA Ames,
~ followed by field tests in Mars analog environments in the California desert on dry lakebeds.
~ Later, tests may take place in permafrost conditions at Haughton Crater on Devon Island, Canada, Stoker said.
Animation:
~ The animation starts by looking down at an artist's rendition of Mars,
~ with a purple hexagon representing a very simplified representation of the "Mars Mole" surface apparatus/rover and lander.
~ The camera zooms down to a side view of the simplified Mars lander.
~ The subsurface is also displayed as a cross section below the lander.
~ A 'drilling' mechanism protrudes from the left side of the lander at a 45-degree angle.
~ The driller mechanism pulls up, and at an elbow in the middle, it bends to form a 90-degree angle,
~ allowing the tip to begin boring into the surface of Mars.
~ The camera zooms out to reveal more of the cross section of the subsurface including various strata.
~ The drilling stops. The camera cuts to the same Mars mole apparatus on the rocky surface of Mars.
~ The hexagon shape of the lander morphs to a rectangular shape and then to a triangular-shaped lander.
~ (This morphing shows that the boring mechanism could be used on a number of different kinds of Mars missions.)
~ The drilling mechanism again drills from the triangular-shaped lander into the subsurface of Mars, seen in cross section.
~ The camera zooms into the boring apparatus as it descends into the subsurface and goes through layers of rock and soil.
~ The camera cuts to a close-up of subsurface material in the strata.
~ The drill enters the top of the image, and the camera zooms in closer on the Mars mole,
~ which includes a mirror-like surface mounted at a 45-degree angle to the borehole.
~ A laser beam is shown traveling down a 'light pipe,
~ 'reflecting off of mirror to illuminate soil sample below Mars' surface.
~ The light pipe also carries resulting spectral data back to instruments on the surface.
~ The camera follows the information flow, up the pipe to the surface apparatus.
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NAME="004">[004] FS4B Hardware ~ Business Sensor: ~ FREE
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[021] FS4B Hardware ~ Business Sensor: ~ FREE
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Small & Smart Inc reserves rights to change this specification
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