Sensors

New Products

See the new products, including the TNC7 control system from HEIDENHAIN; ATI Industrial Automation's GBX 10 Gigabit Tool Changer Ethernet Module; Emerson's Rosemount™ 802 Wireless Multi-Discrete Input or Output Transmitter; Moticont's two 15.9 mm (0.625 in.) diameter Linear Voice Coil Motors, the LVCM-016-019-01M (Metric) and the LVCM-016-019-01 (Imperial); and much more.

New on the Market

See what's new on the market, including Nikon Metrology NV's Scatter Correction CT; Emerson's next-generation Rosemount™ 3490 Controller; Fischer Connectors' USB 3.2 connectors and cable assembly solutions; Renesas Electronics' R-Car Family of system-on-chips for entry-level Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS); and much more.

Cat’s Eye-Inspired Vision System for Autonomous Robotics

Researchers led by Professor Young Min Song from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology have unveiled a vision system inspired by feline eyes to enhance object detection in various lighting conditions. Featuring a unique shape and reflective surface, the system reduces glare in bright environments and boosts sensitivity in low-light scenarios. Read on to learn more.

The First Non-Electric Touchpad

Researchers at Tampere University have developed the world’s first soft touchpad that can sense the force, area, and location of contact without electricity. The device utilizes pneumatic channels, enabling its use in environments such as MRI machines and other conditions that are unsuitable for electronic devices.

Controlling Prosthetic Hands More Precisely by the Power of Thought

Researchers at the German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Göttingen, have developed a novel training protocol for brain-computer interfaces in a...

2024 Product of the Year

Each month, our editors choose a Product of the Month that has exceptional technical merit and practical value for our design engineering readers. Those 11 products are the nominees for the 2024 Tech Briefs Readers’ Choice Product of the Year. You’re invited to cast your vote for the one product among the 11 listed in this article that you feel was the most important new product introduced to the engineering community in 2024.

Designing the Next Generation of Event-Based Sensing and Vision for Edge Applications

Event-based sensing enables new approaches to machine learning. An object recognition or detection algorithm that, until now, could only use the spatial information from a frame can now access another dimension: time. Read on to learn more.

A Metamaterial that Traps, Amplifies Micro-Vibrations in Small Areas

The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science has developed a metamaterial that traps and amplifies micro-vibrations in small areas. This innovation is expected to increase the power output of energy harvesting, which converts wasted vibration energy into electricity, and accelerate its commercialization. Read on to learn more.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including a self-powered “bug” that can skim across water; a sweat-powered wearable that has the potential to make continuous, personalized health monitoring as effortless as wearing a Band-Aid; and a novel foot-pedal operated system and device to control movement of an object in three-dimensional space.

A Wearable System Continuously Monitors Factory Workers for Fatigue

A system of wearable sensors and machine learning can continuously monitor factory workers for signs of physical fatigue. Read on to learn more.

AI-Trained Vehicles Can Adjust to Extreme Turbulence on the Fly

In nature, flying animals sense coming changes in their surroundings, including the onset of sudden turbulence, and quickly adjust to stay safe. Engineers who design aircraft...

How Much Do You Know About Energy Harvesting?

Energy harvesting is an increasingly important technology. It’s important in many different fields, from the Internet of Things to medicine and beyond. How much do you know about energy harvesting? Test your knowledge with this quiz.

5Ws of the Smart Mask

Caltech engineers have developed a prototype for a high-tech paper mask that can be used to monitor a range of metabolic and respiratory conditions.

Solving The Doping Problem: Enhancing Performance in Organic Semiconductors

Physicists at the University of Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory have discovered two new ways to improve organic semiconductors by removing more electrons from the...

Precision Sensors: An Innovative Future for Agriculture

In the summer of 2022, growers in North Carolina were alarmed to find a new variant of the Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus (TSWV). Transmitted by insects called thrips and resistant to...

Optimizing Fluid Sensors for Industrial Process Measurement

When processing pharmaceutical products, how do you tell if a fluid is of high quality? If you are working with crude oil, how do you know how much you are extracting? If you are transporting water, how do you know the flow rate? Such questions, which impact confidence and bottom lines for water, food, life sciences, and oil and gas companies, are addressed by the manufacturers of flowmeters that are installed in pipelines and other equipment. Read on to learn more.

Smart Full-Body Fitness Tracking

With the new Smart Connected Sensors platform from Bosch Sensortec, you can track more than just steps. You can program complex whole-body movements and accurately track them during physical workouts or while you are going through a rehabilitation or physical therapy regimen. Read on to learn more.

RTK and Sensor Fusion for Autonomous Vehicle Navigation & Guidance

This is an exciting time in robotics and vehicle automation, and sensors of all kinds provide critical data to drive this technology forward. But the sensor stack for AVs and ADAS is incomplete without a reliable source of absolute positioning. Read on to learn more.

Battery-Free Smart Sensing

Professor Dinesh Bharadia of the Jacobs School of Engineering University of California San Diego runs their Wireless Communication Sensing and Networking Group. One major focus of the lab is to investigate harvesting energy to enable sensors to communicate in a battery-free manner. The following article is an interview with Professor Bharadia.

Building a Better Rocket with the Help of Piezoelectric Sensors

Specialized measurement technology helps aerospace engineers improve combustion chambers and fuel injectors. In Switzerland, two ambitious student organizations have been using iterative pressure measurements to develop and build a significantly more efficient next generation of rocket engines. Read on to learn more.

New on the Market

See what's new on the market, including the posirot® PRAS20 angle sensor from ASM; PCIe Designer from Keysight Technologies; a new testing procedure from Würth Elektronik; Advanced Energy's new hardware accessory for its high-power supplies, PowerPro Dongle; and Eggtronic's family of EPIC mixed-signal power conversion controller ICs.

Electrochemical Sensors Based on Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay

Researchers at NASA Ames Research Center developed an electrochemical, bead-based biological sensor based on Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) combining a magnetic concentration of signaling molecules and electrochemical amplification using wafer-scale fabrication of microelectrode arrays. Read on to learn more.

A New System for Shape and Contact Detection of Continuum Robots

The sensing and control principles used in this framework could lead to new tactile sensors that can be attached to any existing robotics system, offering new sensing and control paradigms for safe human-robot interaction without altering the robot’s original design. Read on to learn more.

Machine Monitoring Enables Control of Cutting Forces

Reliable machine monitoring yields valuable real-time insights into ongoing processes; it is the basis for dependable, productive, and reproducible manufacturing and it helps machine operators to reach well-founded decisions on both short- and long-term improvements. Read on to learn more about it.

Ultra-Sensitive Lead Detector Could Improve Water Quality Monitoring

Engineers have developed an ultra-sensitive sensor made with graphene that can detect extraordinarily low concentrations of lead ions in water. The device achieves a record limit of detection of lead down to the femtomolar range, which is one million times more sensitive than previous sensing technologies. Read on to learn more.

‘Impossible’ Millimeter Wave Sensor Has Wide Potential

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have developed a proof-of-concept sensor that may usher in a new era for millimeter wave radars. They call its design a “mission impossible” made possible. Read on to learn more.