Remote vibration measurement: A wireless passive surface acoustic wave resonator fast probing strategy

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators can advantageously operate as passive sensors which can be interrogated through a wireless link. Amongst the practical applications of such devices, structural health monitoring through stress measurement and more generally vibration characteristics of mechanical structures benefit from the ability to bury such sensors within the considered structure (wireless and battery-less). However, measurement bandwidth becomes a significant challenge when measuring wideband vibration characteristics of mechanical structures. A fast SAW resonator measurement scheme is demonstrated here. The measurement bandwidth is limited by the physical settling time of the resonator (Q/pi periods), requiring only two probe pulses through a monostatic RADAR-like electronic setup to identify the sensor resonance frequency and hence stress on a resonator acting as a strain gauge. A measurement update rate of 4800 Hz using a high quality factor SAW resonator operating in the 434 MHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical band is experimentally demonstrated. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4705728]