Sensors/​Data Acquisition

Silicon carbide-based position sensors INPROX Technology Corp. Boston, MA 617-573-5158 www.inproxtechnology.com INPROX Technology Corp. (ITC) has entered into a Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA’s John H. Glenn Research Center in Ohio to develop advanced silicon carbide (SiC)- based...

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a tool to quantitatively measure elusive atmospheric chemicals that play a key role in forming photochemical smog. The device measures atmospheric hydroperoxyl radicals - short-lived, highly reactive intermediates involved in forming...

Inspired by the device used to find lost coins in the sand, Johns Hopkins University biomedical engineering students have invented a small handheld metal detector to help doctors locate hidden orthopedic screws that need to be removed from patients' bodies. The device emits a tone that rises in pitch as the surgeon moves closer...

Norfolk Southern Railway (NS, Norfolk, VA) and BNSF Railway Company (BNSF, Ft. Worth, TX) will begin testing a new braking system that may reduce the amount of time it takes to stop a train. The project, authorized by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), calls for NS and BNSF to equip and test certain locomotives and freight cars...

Using lasers and tuning forks, researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a chemical weapon agent sensing technique called Quartz Laser Photo-Acoustic Sensing (QPAS) that promises to meet or exceed current and emerging defense and homeland security chemical detection requirements. The instrument is...

A research team led by Chang Liu at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, Champaign, IL) has built a sensor for underwater vehicles equivalent to a sensory organ found on fish called the lateral line. In fish, the lateral line provides guidance for synchronized swimming, obstacle avoidance, and prey/predator detection...

A technology for monitoring protein growth -- developed in part through NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding from Marshall Space Flight Center -- is noninvasive, nondestructive, rapid, and more cost effective than x-ray analysis. The partner for this SBIR, Photon-X, Inc. (Huntsville, AL), developed spatial-phase...

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a new class of gas sensors using a chemical process that converts the silica (silicon dioxide) found in the shells of diatoms into the semiconductor material silicon. Silicon is normally produced from silica at temperatures well above the silicon melting point...

Printable Biosensor for On-Site, Online Measurements -- Bioactive Hybrid Materials for Photonic Microsystems It allows samples to be analyzed on site within a few minutes by integrating biotechnology, information technology, electronics, physics, and chemistry to realize small and cost-effective bio-photonic microsystems....

Purdue University researchers have created a handheld sensing system its creators liken to Star Trek's "tricorder" used to analyze the chemical components of alien worlds. The new portable system is an ultrafast chemical analysis tool that could be used for detecting everything from cancer in the liver to explosives residue...

Using optical fibers, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found a way to create a sensor that detects the direction from which a sound is coming under water. The new sensor could allow the U.S. Navy to develop compact arrays to detect quiet underwater targets, while also providing unambiguous directional...

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory developed a pinpointed sound beam that can detect buried land mines from a safe distance. Called a parametric acoustic array, the device is made up of ceramic transducers -- devices that emit a powerful narrow acoustic beam at ultrasonic frequencies. One...