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This work is based on a current project funded by the United States Army Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program and is being conducted with the Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) Ground Systems Survivability (GSS) Team and Paradigm Research and Engineering. The focus of this project is to develop an advanced and novel sensing and activation strategy for Pyrotechnic Restraint Systems, Air Bags and other systems that may require activation. The overriding technical challenge is to activate these systems to effectively protect the Soldier during blast events in addition to Crash, Rollover and Other Injury Causing events. These activations of Pyrotechnic systems must occur in fractions of milliseconds as compared to typical automotive crashes.

The Magnetostrictive Dynamic Strain Sensor is a permanent-magnet constant-flux excitation sensor and thus requires no other electrical excitation or power source. It does not require any signal conditioning. Since it is a constant-flux dynamic sensor, it does not generate any offset voltage and it does not exhibit temperature or drift problems. Furthermore, the sensor is rugged, simple and inexpensive. The sensor's time-averaged output is constantly zero. The sensor detects only dynamic events such as impact, crash, firing (or misfiring) of an engine cylinder, piston slap, vibrations of a machine component, vehicles passing through a bridge, etc. Therefore, the sensor has many promising automotive applications including crash and misfire detection.