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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 31 March 2010 and numbered DIA-08-1003-020, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under its Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. It surveys biosensors and biomedical microelectromechanical systems, covering brain-implanted micromachine neuroelectrodes, drug-delivery pumps, glucose sensors, neural interfaces, retinal prostheses, microfluidic lab chips, NASA cell-culture systems and microcantilever sensors. It concludes that the field is expanding rapidly, with nanomechanical systems expected to follow.
From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/31/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD surveys biosensors and BioMEMS, a broad class of miniature biomedical devices that combine microscale engineering with sensing, fluid handling, stimulation, or drug-delivery functions. The report reviews major application areas including implantable blood-chemistry sensors, neural interfaces, neurostimulation, drug-delivery pumps, microfluidic systems, and emerging nanoscale extensions of the field, while emphasizing that miniaturization can improve sensitivity and enable functions that are difficult or impossible at larger scales. However, it also makes clear that practical development is constrained by biocompatibility, long-term stability, sensor drift, device degradation inside the body, and the high regulatory burden associated with implantable medical systems. The document presents BioMEMS as a rapidly growing and productive field whose future advances are likely to come through continued improvements in fabrication, materials, and reliability.
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drift and offset in the reading and so shifting the calibration. Depending on its exact
construction some versions however can be effective for as much as a few days.
Figure 8 shows the latest in microdevice oxygen sensors. (This particular version is not
specifically a MEMS device since it is not made by photolithography and it is neither
.§lectrical nor mechanical in nature.) It represents however the trend in oxygen sensors
towards optical measurement techniques that are evolving towards optical systems
based on MEMS. These sensors can be implemented in small sizes with optical fibers
that transmit and receive light from the sensor surface at the tip. Variations on this
basic principle are used for indwelling blood oxygen catheters during surgery.
fiber op cs
silicone cover
Figure 8. A Fiber Optical Oxygen Sensor Showing Two Optical Fibers Mated to Plastic Prisms That are
Coated With an Oxygen-Sensor Coating, Usually a Fluorescent Ruthenium Compound
( http://www.imtek.de/content/projekte_en. php?ls= 11)
The oxygen sensors respond to changes in absorption of oxygen into the special coating
at the t ip, or in some versions, they respond to fluorescence of a thin oxygen-sensitive
coating placed on the prism surface. The secret to good performance lies in the
proprietary selection of the specific chemical species selected for the coating.
Blue light is usually transmitted down the optical fiber and the coating glows orange in
proportion to the amount of oxygen present. The light from the glow is conducted back
toward the supporting instrumentation system. The intensity of the orange light then
indicates oxygen levels in the solution. The particular sensor shown in Figure 8 uses
two optical fibers. The one on the left side is not sensitive to oxygen, but rather acts as
a reference system that is used to compensate for changes temperature, ambient light,
and other system variables.
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 45 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.