Low-Power Circuit for an Electromagnetic Warning System Sensor

Low-power sensors are important to the Army for monitoring infrastructure of the lifecycle of an operation. Isotope batteries can power and operate compact, low-power sensors for decades. A lowpower circuit has been developed to generate a repetitive radio frequency (RF) impulse, which will be used to indicate that a sensor has detected a target. This sensor circuit has been modeled and built to evaluate several isotope batteries in preparation. A parametric study of components in the circuit has been performed to minimize power consumption as a function of repetition rate and pulse width of the light-emitting diode indicator or RF impulse output.