New Passive Sensor Tag Identifies Water Leaks in Vehicles, Ships and Planes

Leaks inside cars will soon become a thing of the past, as Smartrac launches the first-ever passive water sensor tag that works on metal surfaces such as the harsh environment of an automobile chassis. The solution ensures that cars leaving the factory are completely watertight, and may also find applications in aviation manufacture and shipbuilding.
 
Smartrac has teamed up with chip manufacturer RFMicron to develop Sensor Tadpole, a UHF sensor tag that is deployed on cars during assembly, and used to detect small amounts of water leakage inside vehicle compartments that can damage a car’s electronics bays, cabins and trunks. The sensor tag features RFMicron’s Magnus S2 Sensor IC with its patented Chameleon technology, which can be used to sense moisture or pressure.
 
As more and more hybrid and electric cars are produced that require enhanced protection for their electronic circuitry and electrical components, identifying water ingress in these critical areas is becoming ever more important for manufacturers. Window seals, weather stripping and body seams are the primary causes of factory water leakage.
 
Smartrac’s Sensor Tadpole is an on-metal passive sensor tag designed to work on metal surfaces, with minimum signal degradation from surrounding structures. The tag has a strong adhesive and small, slim form factor, which makes for easy deployment on difficult surfaces. Sensor Tadpole is deployed in the manufacturing flow as part of the automobile’s assembly process.
 
“The use of RFMicron’s Magnus S2 Sensor IC enables a reliable alternative to today’s manually intensive and error-prone water intrusion testing process, resulting in an automated, cost-effective, scalable moisture-sensor solution,” said Shahriar Rokhsaz, RFMicron president and CEO. “The benefits of the sensor solution are cost savings, faster and more accurate water intrusion detection, and improved customer satisfaction as vehicles that escape factory water-intrusion testing result in significant field repair costs and cause irreparable damage to a manufacturer’s reputation.”
 
The use of a passive sensor means that the tag requires no power supply, servicing or replacing. Sensing capabilities are supplied without the need for batteries or an external power source, because the IC harvests UHF energy from a hand-held reader or optionally from a gate reader, which scans vehicles as they pass through the final quality-check areas of the factory production line.
 
“Future applications for Sensor Tadpole could include many more industries, where monitoring water ingress levels is of obvious importance,” added Lauri Hyytinen, head of Segment Automotive, Business Division Intelligent Things at Smartrac.
 
The first commercial deployment of Sensor Tadpole is already being piloted. Project-managed by automation partner Turck, a German OEM is successfully testing the passive sensor tag in high-end cars to ensure that they leave the factory watertight.
 
The unique TID, EPC and sensor code offer the opportunity to manage and collate the information received from the sensor tag using Smartrac’s Smart Cosmos Cloud-based services platform, which is of high interest to manufacturers wishing to track the performance of components, or to improve quality management.