Miniature Electronic Sniffer for Navy Vertical Take off Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (VTUAVs)

We propose to jointly develop a miniaturized novel chemical sensor system through a collaborative effort between IonFinity, LLC, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Imaginative Technologies, LLC. This field portable chemical sensor system consists of 1) a new and powerful detector called a Differential Mobility Spectrometer (DMS) developed by Imaginative Technologies, and 2) a novel “soft-ionization” membrane (SIM) that does not fragment or multiply-ionize sampled species developed at JPL in collaboration with IonFinity. Our goal is to design and prototype an inexpensive miniature ~900 gram, field qualified, easy-to-use, ruggard, battery-operated, non-contact TRL 6 chemical sensor system that is capable of detecting chemicals, explosives, and illegal drug residues in the holds and storage bays of suspect vessels. The device will detect chemicals at low ppb levels after 10 seconds. Detection levels are similar to those of mass spectrometry but without the complicated, bulky vacuum system that enables packaging in a smaller and quicker instrument. BENEFITS: Ionfinity intends to partner with and licensing to Companies with a demonstrated ability to fabricate, market, distribute and support products in the field of mass spectroscopy and analysis. Ionfinity has 5 issued and 6 pending patents. In order to achieve the greatest gains it wishes to license a basket of related technologies that simultaneously address issues related to the development and delivery of low cost, highly efficient, portable instruments for trace sample detection, environmental monitoring, medical diagnostics, and industrial process control operating both in air and water based on an approach involving soft ionization and mass spectroscopy that is not limited in sensitivity or mass range and that does not fragment samples of interest. In order to assure that our intellectual property performs well in the application environment, Ionfinity has outlined how it would like to interact with any company acquiring the technology: 1. Royalty based license for incorporation of technologies into partner’s instrument or system. 2. Work with licensee to develop, integrate, test and validate licensed technology resident in their system before it is taken to the market. 3. Provide tech support to licensee after release. 4. Become ion production and analysis provider tailoring where needed or advancing if desired. With a significant body of intellectual property in hand, Ionfinity is interested in licensing a select portfolio exclusively to an industry leader in the mass spectrometry market that will exploit its capabilities to the fullest. Terms of the license are negotiable but include consulting, milestone payments based on performance, and grant-backs if the licensee cannot take full advantage of the technology within the timeframe to which both parties agree. The attached resumes represent what we consider to be not only the most well rounded team for the Differential Ion Mobility development activity and SIM ionization technique but also this team represents collectively what can be proved to be, by virtue of their accomplishments, entirely capable of addressing the most challenging advanced trace element/compound detection technology projects. The thin film/ and trace element/compound detection requirement does not represent a significant challenge to this team Individuals in this group have decades of experience in developing remote and in-situ instruments for both military and civilian space flight applications. The preceding narration and its relation to the fabrication of a small, light (less than 1.5 lbs.), and sensitive electronic sniffer sensor that is capable of detecting Chemical, explosive, and illegal drug residue are essentially within the realm of the skill sets possessed by the Imaginative Technologies, JPL and Ionfinity team.