SA PHOTONICS, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A18-026

Description

Todays military and commercial aircraft engines are becoming more powerful and fuel efficient in order to produce better performance.For high performance military aircrafts, the engines continue to push the speed, pressure and temperature limits in order to get more thrust in a lighter more compact package.For UAV engines where turbochargers are used, it is extremely important to prevent shaft speeds from the resonant frequencies in the turbochargers. If this happens, the blades on the compressor or turbine wheel can fail, leading to the destruction of the turbocharger which then causes the UAV to crash. Therefore, there is a need to develop a turbocharger speed sensor that can reliably operate under the austere environment produced by high performance engines.SA Photonics is pleased to propose the development of a high-performance turbocharger speed sensor system for monitoring the rotation speed of the turbocharger shaft. It has the following attractive properties:- Speeds > 250,000 rpm with better than 2% accuracy- Able to continuously operate to > 500 hrs- Able to work athigh heat, oxidation, erosion and exhaust particle contaminant environments- One-size-fit-all ability: Same design can operate in different turbochargers sizes and shapes