Project description
Micromechanical sensors enable unprecedented measurement of microscale properties
Smart sensors have a significant impact on our ability to measure and characterise solids, liquids and gases in applications ranging from industrial processes and defence to environmental and biomedical sciences. Increasing access to 5G networks, the expansion of the Internet of Things and the implementation of Industry 4.0 will only increase the need for and value of smart sensor technology. The EU-funded MARS project is developing a highly versatile and accurate mass and rheology sensing platform that exploits advanced technologies at the microscale. The novel platform will make use of a microcantilever to measure important properties at the microscale, in real time and with unprecedented precision.
Objective
The MARS project will develop a platform for measuring mass at microscale and rheological properties of Newtonian/ non-Newtonian fluids in real-time, with unprecedented resolution, accuracy and reliability. This will be achieved by exploiting some unique degrees of flexibility in the dynamical response of a self-excited micromechanical probe. Depending on the desired application, this platform can be either used as a continuous sensor, a threshold sensor or a stable reference. Measuring the mass of analytes with high accuracy and understanding the rheology of simple and complex fluids play a critical role in a wide variety of applications in the ever-growing smart sensor global market.
The success of the MARS project requires:
- Advanced modelling of the dynamical response of self-excited microresonators oscillating in Newtonian or non-Newtonian fluids while subject to mass changes;
- Design, development and optimisation of the new sensing platform;
- Real case experiments for mass sensing, to assess and showcase the capabilities of each sensing modality;
- Characterisation of the properties of weakly non-Newtonian viscoelastic fluids.
This platform addresses several of the main drawbacks of current techniques to measure mass or to characterise viscoelastic fluids and presents some unique features:
i) Self-sustained oscillations that keep track of any environmental changes affecting the mechanical probe, without requiring any external equipment;
ii) Possibility of controlling a variety of sensing modalities by introducing delay in the feedback loop with a phase-shifter circuit;
iii) Capability of sensing extremely small mass (potentially single molecules) and weakly non-Newtonian fluids.
The end technical result will be a proof-of-concept prototype to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technology, and its potential to engage with external partners for further development in the direction of a viable and revolutionary commercial product.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
00185 Roma
Italy