The first Smart Oil Sensor Demonstration

Carl Byington, Ryan Brewer, and other Impact Technologies team members developed and demonstrated oil sensing technology based on broadband electrochemical impedance spectroscopy.
An on-line fluid analysis process that can determine oil health in real-time will address the current shortcomings in oil analysis practices. The proposed program directly addresses this technological need through the development of a prototype sensor package (Smart Oil Sensor™) to infer oil quality using a novel, broadband electrical impedance spectroscopy method. A means to infer the quality of oil, as well as the health of the adjoining mechanical systems, would provide critical information to ensure asset readiness and allow maintenance actions to be planned on the basis of condition. This capability would also greatly reduce cost and waste, as well as provide a faster, on-demand assessment of oil condition. Implementation of an on-line system would help minimize/prevent pollution, conserve fluid resources, and help the DoD comply with federal, state, local, and host-nation environmental requirements by reducing generated waste.
Moreover, by providing on-line quality measurements along with other evolving capabilities, such as debris sensing and vibration measurements, machinery failure mode indicators can be fused to produce better fault classification and component (LRU) replacement recommendations. Such an on-line predictive capability will provide readiness and total ownership cost benefits, and several major acquisition programs are planning to implement improved on-line systems with their fielded platforms. A critical step toward accomplishing some of these economic and logistic goals is the development of improved on-line monitoring systems as detailed herein. Developments in this oil condition monitoring and advanced, autonomous filtering arena will help reduce life cycle costs, increase readiness, maintain inherent machine reliability, provide greater mission assurance, and improve safety.