Integration Without Disruption: The Basic Challenge of Sensor Integration

The basic challenge in embedding sensors in materials is to meet simultaneously two conflicting requirements; on one hand, we want to retrieve sensor data from the material and thus we have to integrate sensors, electronics, and interconnections. On the other hand, sensors are foreign bodies in the material, which may deteriorate its macroscopic properties. This paper discusses several possibilities to integrate sensors in material in a minimal invasive way, avoiding subsequent deterioration of its macroscopic performance. It is our idea to adapt the integrated sensor to the surrounding matrix and to reduce sensors volume to the minimum, which is needed to guarantee the function. This approach is called function scale integration.