Monitoring

Articles: Test & Measurement

Vote for Product of the Year 2018

The 2018 Nominees Are:

Each December, we ask our readers to cast their votes in the annual Tech Briefs’ Readers’ Choice Product of the Year Awards. Each month, our editors choose a Product of the Month...

Briefs: Materials

Wide-Area Chemical Sensor

The detection and localization of gas releases, such as methane from leaking natural gas pipelines or nitrogen oxides from failing electrical equipment, require high sensitivity to the target gas and insensitivity...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Device Detects Subatomic-Scale Motion

It is relatively easy to measure small movements of large objects, but is much more difficult when the moving parts are on the scale of nanometers, or billionths of a meter. The ability to accurately...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Portable Acousto-Optic Spectrometers

Spectrometers are widely used for applications such as chemical analysis, remote sensing, quality control, environmental monitoring, spaceborne measurements, and optical measurements. Most spectrometers...

Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Inductive Non-Contact Position Sensor

The Inductive Non-Contact Position Sensor is a highly accurate sensor for motion control applications. The sensor was designed to monitor the precise movements of an optical inspection system that...

Facility Focus: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Facility Focus: Ames Laboratory

Ames Laboratory is a government-owned, contractor-operated national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), operated by and located on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames, IA. For more than...

Technology Leaders: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Five Industry Trends Disrupting the Design and Manufacturing World

The engineering and manufacturing world is rapidly changing — are you changing with it? The claim of “reinventing” the fundamental tools of an industry is a bold one,...

Products: Electronics & Computers

Product of the Month: December 2018

Yokogawa Corporation of America, Newnan, GA, released the WT5000 power analyzer that achieves accuracy of ±0.03% at 50/60 Hz, allowing precision evaluation of power consumption, loss, and...

Blog: Test & Measurement

After a Successful Landing, What’s Next for the InSight Mission?

InSight project manager Tom Hoffman spoke with Tech Briefs about the importance of digging deep in our knowledge of Mars.

Articles: Medical

Smart Sensor Technology for the IoT

Internet of Things (IoT) applications — whether for city infrastructures, factories, or wearable devices — use large arrays of sensors collecting data for transmission over the Internet to a central,...

Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Products of Tomorrow: November 2018

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that...

Articles: Energy

Simplifying Access to High Energy Sub-5-fs Pulses

In order to make ultrafast pulses accessible to the broadest possible field of applications, Coherent has been implementing a comprehensive program of design methodologies, materials...

Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Next-Generation Photodetector Camera to Deploy During Robotic Servicing Demonstration Mission

An advanced, highly compact thermal camera that traces its heritage to one now flying on NASA's Landsat 8 has been mounted in a corner of NASA's...

Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control

A Closer Look at Bats, Hummingbirds Offers New Ideas for Flying Robots

Rivers Ingersoll spoke with Tech Briefs about why it is so important to have an up-close understanding of the hummingbird and nectar bat.

Products: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

New Products: October 2018 Motion Design

Multi-Voltage Motors

Simotics SD Pro low-voltage motors from Siemens (Munich, Germany) are suited for mains-fed operation or with a converter for voltages up to 690 volts. There is generally...

Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Optical Mass Sensor for Multi-Phase Flows

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center is offering opportunities for its new fiber optic mass flow sensor system. Capable of measuring multi-phase flows in a pipe, the technology is minimally invasive,...

Articles: Electronics & Computers

NASA at 60: From Space to Earth

The benefits of NASA's space exploration efforts are not limited to the cosmos. NASA technologies provide innovative solutions for people around the world. NASA missions have generated thousands of spinoffs...

Briefs: Test & Measurement

“Soft Hardware” Cloth Has Built-In Electronic Devices

Optical fibers have been traditionally produced by making a cylindrical object called a preform — essentially, a scaled-up model of the fiber — and then heating it. Softened...

News: Test & Measurement

Answering Your Questions: How Can Medical IoT Devices Move Beyond Simple Information Gathering?

Is there more to the "Internet of Medical Things" than just data gathering? A reader asks our experts.

Blog: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Meet Lindley Johnson, Planetary Defense Officer (and Asteroid Hunter)

NASA's Lindley Johnson explains how the exciting business of asteroid detection does have its moments that are “like any other office job.”

Podcasts: Test & Measurement

Here's an Idea: Vibration Communication

The haptics field is wide open, and researchers are finding new and exciting ways to send a message through touch.

Briefs: Aerospace

Integrated Multiphysics and Advanced Diagnostics

The objective of this effort was to design, fabricate, integrate, and fly a nuclear thermal rocket without having to build massive ground test facilities. Furthermore, this nuclear rocket...