Homeland security monitoring sensors and early warning relay and diagnostic system

This paper addresses the development of a wireless sensor system array for the detection and identification of bioterrorism agents and hazardous vapors and other gases with a realistic goal of "stick and forget sensing" especially attractive to homeland security needs. New and improved sensors are needed for many security applications with fast, reliable and sensitive detection and identification. Some of the most important tools in today's national security are biological and chemical agents' detection and identification. These devices need to be small and fast so that they can easily detect and identify any traces of hazardous materials. Biosensors are analytical devices which use biological interactions to provide either qualitative or quantitative results. Due to its ability to manipulate and organize matter and structures from atomic up to molecular scales, the nanotechnology is widely viewed as the most significant technological frontier which has to be explored in many areas including physical, chemical, electrical and biological sciences. Design and successful development of devices of the size of few nm to couple of hundreds of nm, nanotechnology has been heralded as most powerful technology as ever seen before. This has lead to the development of better materials, highly sensitive sensing systems and wide verity of nano-devices. This sensor array is based on Multi-walled Carbon Nanotube (MWCNT) as sensing element, which is synthesized and chemically bonded with different polymers for sensing different biological agents and gases. An array of these sensing elements with integrated ChemFET is connected to a low power wireless system for the real-time detection and identification. We have successfully demonstrated the detection and identification of various gases and chemicals using wireless setup.