Multisensor Wireless Asset Tracking System

Flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) are being developed for sensors and smart tags. PARC is developing a multi-sensor asset tracking system fabricated with FHE techniques. The system has four sensing modalities, temperature, relative humidity (RH), impact, and an air-leak sensor. The temperature sensor comprises metal oxide nanoparticles in a binder deposited from the solution. The RH sensor is a polyimide capacitor with printed electrodes. The impact sensor is a thin film piezoelectric and the air-leak sensor is an electrochemical thin film transistor with a PEDOT channel, solid electrolyte, and printed electrodes. The sensors are integrated on a flexible substrate with printed interconnects forming a circuit design to record sensor data and transfer to sensing and communication IC. A conventional silicon microprocessor captures data from the sensors and stores the data with a time stamp. The microprocessor uses Bluetooth low energy to transfer data to an android phone. Characteristics of the sensors and the operation of the prototype system will be discussed.