Application of MEMS in safety and arming devices: an overview

Application of innovative technologies for the design and development of state-of-the-art weapons, enable precision aiming and maximum destruction, with minimal collateral damage. Modern warfare is based on accurate guidance and information superiority; hence next generation of weapons tends to be more reliable, intelligent, lightweight and compact. Fuze is one of the key components in the next generation of munitions. In the last two decades, MEMS-based Safety and Arming (S&A) devices were introduced to achieve fuze miniaturization and realize extended fuze functions. The use of MEMS technology for the design of fuzes based on advanced S&A devices provides the advantages like low cost, parallel processing, mass fabrication, efficient designs, and ease of system integration. With microsensors and actuators being fabricated on the single microchip, MEMS technology has revolutionized the fuze system design, yielding smart devices with microprocessors and data crosslinking ability. The efficient design of MEMS-based S&A devices for weapon fuze system is likely to shape the future of next-generation weapons. A consolidated study on MEMS-based S&A devices designed by various researchers in the past two decades is presented in this paper. MEMS S&A devices are reviewed, with special emphasis on the fabrication techniques and processes, device material and composition, sensing and actuation mechanisms and device integration with weapon fuze system. The reviewed designs of MEMS-based S&A devices are compared based on salient design features like driving principle, device composition, device size, maximum displacement etc. A comparison matrix is formulated, and logical conclusions are drawn from the work of various researchers, which can serve as a guide for future design of MEMS-based S&A devices for integration with weapons fuze systems.