| Steep-Slope Monitoring
| Although GPS is an efficient tool for deformation monitoring, it also is an expensive one for large projects. The authors developed a remote-controlled monitoring system using an electronic switching device for multiple antennas to monitor steep slopes at the Xiaowan hydropower station in China.
| | | Getting into Pockets and Purses
| | Add one more to the list of challenges faced by consumer GPS-enabled devices: the human hand that holds them. Body loading significantly degrades receiver sensitivity. A dielectrically loaded quadrifilar helix antenna can ameliorate this condition. | |  MORE ARTICLES
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| Sense and Respond Networks for Agile, Secure Distribution
| | Active RFID tags can store entire manifests and routing schedules as well as sensor data. | | | Safe Boating, Everyone!
| | The cry of "man overboard!" is second only to "fire on shipboard!" as a general alarm for all hands. But what if no one sees that fellow boater or shipmate (or pet) fall into the drink? The Raymarine (www.raymarine.com) LifeTag system, using Ember's ZigBee (www.zigbee.org) networking technology, does away with that unhappy scenario. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| | | Making Sense of Automotive Pressure Sensors
| | Demands on auto designers for enhanced engine performance, emissions control, and safety features, coupled with the need to keep costs down, make sensor selection critical. This primer provides the information needed to make the right choices. | | | A MEMS Gyro for the Harsh Engine Compartment Environment
| | Use of vehicular electronic stability controls is growing. A new quartz MEMS gyroscope can handle the harsh under-hood environment, where temperatures exceed 125°C and shock and vibration are significant. | | | Materials Innovations May Challenge Noncontact-Sensor Growth
| | The development of "active," noncontact sensors based on Hall effect, magnetoresistive, and variable-reluctance transformer technologies is penetrating the established market of "passive," contact sensors—and increasingly taking market share for automotive speed and position applications, says market research firm Strategy Analytics. "This is being driven by the need for improved reliability as well as increased functionality and accuracy," notes senior analyst Simon Schofield. | | | Safety and Security Soar, Machine Vision Enters Automotive On Ramp
| | Arecent study by TRW Automotive Inc. reports that 74% of respondents say vehicle safety features and options are more important to them than they were five years ago. And all of the entries on Edmunds.com's Top 10 High-Tech Car Safety Technologies—which the automotive information source recommends consumers look for when car shopping—are sensor based. Most are self-explanatory: | |
| | Enabling 3D Vision
| | High-end machine vision applications are progressing from 2D to 3D
imaging with techniques such as laser triangulation and
stereovision, say analysts at Frost & Sullivan. | | | Sun-Sentinel Reports Backup Sensor Debate
| | On March 26, South Florida's Sun-Sentinel reported that a local
woman, whose two-year- old daughter was killed before her eyes as a
neighbor's car backed over her, is on a mission. | | | Unprecedented Safety, Courtesy of Sensors
| | Savvy sensor buyers watch the automotive market. That's because this cost- and reliability-conscious industry makes tough demands of sensor developers?demands that ultimately benefit other applications. And this is car show season, so it's time to pay attention. | | | From a Roar to a Purr
| | One of the characteristics of luxury cars is how quiet it is within the passenger compartment. A smooth and quiet ride is an important part of the overall experience of the car. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Signal Amplification
| | With the recent introduction of cheap ?? analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) offering resolutions of 24 bits or more, you'd think that the digital revolution is complete, and that the need for analog design has passed. Twenty-four bits gives you a resolution of better than 1 ?V on a 10 V span, so these high-resolution converters will make it easy to solve many interfacing problems with a minimum of additional circuitry. | | | The Five-Minute Filter University—August Session
| | Last month we discussed a number of simple passive filters in both low-pass and high-pass configurations. Although these filters could reject out-of-band signals, this capability was relatively limited because they all had an attenuation roll-off rate of –20 dB/decade. You will find that many applications require a much greater ability to reject out-of-band signals than that provided by the passive low-pass filters we looked at. | | | The Five-Minute Filter University, July Session
| | Back in the late 1970s comedian Don Novello (a.k.a. Father Guido Sarducci) had a routine called the "Five-Minute University," which was supposed to impart to you, in the span of only five minutes, all the knowledge you would retain five years after graduating from a regular university. So, in the same spirit, I offer "Dr. Ed's Five-Minute Analog Filter Design University." | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Moving SOA onto the Plant Floor
| | If the sensor manufacturers' products already have the software "hooks" that allow the sensor data to be accessed by the SOA, the implementation has a quicker ROI. | | | How NetWeaver Drives Change
| | The software suite empowers managers and planners to build applications and processes that promote evolving company goals and enable innovation throughout the organization. | | | MES—A Work In Progress
| | Traditionally, a manufacturing execution system (MES) is defined as a production scheduling and tracking system, which schedules and updates orders, analyzes and reports resource availability, collects execution data—such as material and labor usage, process parameters, and order and equipment status—and maintains statistical quality control. But such a static definition doesn't do this genre of software justice because MESs are a work in progress. | | | OPC—A Question of Relevance
| | For ten years, OPC's suite of standards has provided the industrial automation world with open connectivity, but the technology on which its standards are based is no longer on the cutting edge of data sharing. The foundation that rescued manufacturers, systems integrators, and software providers from the chaos of proprietary communications interfaces now has to compete with fast movers such as service-oriented architectures and Web services. The question is: Can the standards evolve, embrace new communications mechanisms, and remain relevant? | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Special Report
| | It's hard to overestimate the impact of MEMS—or LabVIEW—on sensor applications. | | | So Much More
| | The Today at Sensors weblog (www.sensorsmag.com) not only gave us Sensors editors an outlet to report daily from Sensors Expo (June 5–7, www.sensorsexpo.com), but also it lets us tell you more about Expo happenings—among other things—than we've been able to before. Thank goodness, because there's much to tell! | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| The ΔΣ ADC Learns New Tricks
| | A new architecture is blurring the distinction between successive approximation register (SAR) and ΔΣ ADCs, creating devices that couple high resolution with high throughput, achieving exceptional measurement accuracy and ease of integration. | | Choosing the Right Pressure Transmitter:
| | Choosing the right pressure transmitter for your application involves more than specifying the pressure range. Don't forget to consider the technologies available, the environmental stresses and strains that will be involved, and the lifetime cost. | | Choosing the Right Pressure Transmitter:
| | Choosing the right pressure transmitter for your application involves more than specifying the pressure range. Don't forget to consider the technologies available, the environmental stresses and strains that will be involved, and the lifetime cost. | | | 3D Image Correlation: Measuring Displacement and Surface Strain
| | 3D image correlation is a general-purpose strain measurement tool that allows us to measure 3D displacement and the true surface strains of any material without contact and without many of the difficulties associated with these measurements. | | | Sensing with Autonomous Mobile Robots
| | Autonomous mobile robots rely on sensors to navigate through their environment. | | | Advances in IR Temperature Measurement
| | The latest developments in IR sensors not only help you optimize your manufacturing processes and business operations but also enable you to meet industry standards for final product quality and reliability. | | | Is Your Engine Weary?
| | Scientists at the University of Manchester, U.K., are developing a
new type of wireless sensor to remotely monitor mechanical parts
and systems and allow predictions of breakdowns in advance of
failure. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| MEMS in Automotive and Consumer Electronics
| | The automotive and consumer electronics industries are increasingly adopting MEMS-based sensors. Here's a brief analysis of where and how these sensors are used and how we predict the market will behave over the next five years. | | | MEMS Update: What's Near What's Here
| | Hilton Head offers a measure of progress toward commercialization of leading-edge sensor technologies and a window to the future. | | | From a Roar to a Purr
| | One of the characteristics of luxury cars is how quiet it is within the passenger compartment. A smooth and quiet ride is an important part of the overall experience of the car. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Mel's Picks
| | Online Vision Tutorial; Job Search Site; Personalized Ringtones | | | Mel's Picks
| | I've mentioned Sensorland.com, a Web site for information on sensing and measurement, before in this column. The people behind Sensorland.com have now added Sensorwatch to the main site. This is a series of internal Web sites, each devoted to a particular type of sensor. Currently, there are sites for pressure, position/proximity, vibration, load/force, and instrumentation. Look here for lists of suppliers, new product updates, and other relevant information. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Sense and Respond Networks for Agile, Secure Distribution
| | Active RFID tags can store entire manifests and routing schedules as well as sensor data. | | | App Snaps
| | The current conflict in Iraq is proving to be a war of amputations. If it's any consolation, an extremely well engineered prosthetic, the Boston Digital Arm (BDA), promises to reproduce much of a lost limb's functionality. The BDA's operating principle has been well demonstrated—the user's remaining muscles and nerves activate the device and control its movements. This arm goes beyond conventional prosthetics, though, by having five axes of motion as well as a variable gripping force in the hand that gives the user the ability to "sense" a held object. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Sensing with Autonomous Mobile Robots
| | Autonomous mobile robots rely on sensors to navigate through their environment. | | | Special Report
| | It's hard to overestimate the impact of MEMS—or LabVIEW—on sensor applications. | | | R&D
| | Magic Spectacles; Lose the Leads; No-Antenna Radar; Get More from a Scan; Safety Net for Miners | | | Magic Spectacles
| | One problem with every type of eyeglasses, contact lenses, and even the plastic lenses implanted after cataract removal is that they all have a fixed focal length. Auto-focus cameras don't, but they operate on a principle that wouldn't work for a pair of spectacles. Until now. | | | Blood Plasma Reveals Cancer
| | Quest Diagnostics Inc. has launched the first of its Leumeta cancer testing assays, designed as an alternative to bone marrow biopsies (which everyone would prefer to avoid). | | | Cells' Secrets Revealed
| | A Georgia Tech research team is using a modified atomic force microscope (AFM) to study the role of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in cystic fibrosis (CF). Although a link has been discovered between elevated levels of ATP, a chemical associated with energy transport, and CF, quantitative measurements at the cell surface that might help explain the trigger mechanism have proved elusive. | |
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