Thermally Stable Wireless Patch Antenna Sensor for Strain and Crack Sensing

Strain and crack are critical indicators of structural safety. As a novel sensing device, a patch antenna sensor can be utilized to wirelessly estimate structural strain and surface crack growth through resonance frequency shift. The main challenges for the sensor are other effects such as temperature fluctuation that can generate unwanted resonance frequency shift and result in large noise in the measurement. Another challenge for existing designs of patch antenna sensor is the limited interrogation distance. In this research, thermally stable patch antenna sensors are investigated for more reliable measurement. Fabricated on a substrate material with a steady dielectric constant, a new passive (battery-free) patch antenna sensor is designed to improve reliability under temperature fluctuations. In addition, another newly designed dual-mode patch antenna sensor is proposed to achieve a longer interrogation distance. Extensive experiments are conducted to characterize the patch antenna sensor performance, including thermal stability, tensile strain sensing, and emulated crack sensing. The two new patch antenna sensors are demonstrated to be effective in wireless strain and crack measurements and have potential applications in structural health monitoring (SHM).