Sensors
How your car can protect you from invisible danger
When thinking about vehicle safety, reducing the number of road traffic victims often comes to mind first. But something less visible and noticeable causes more than double the amount of deadly victims each year. Air pollution is a serious threat to human health. According to the World Health Organisation, more than 90% of people breathe poor quality air.
Being smart about smart meters
“Who’s left this TV on again?” You can almost hear the cries of dads all around the country as they realise their home smart meter is showing a spike in energy consumption. It's not just dads either. Energy companies are currently promoting smart meters as a way for consumers to reduce their energy costs. But did you know these can also be used in industry? However, as Steve Hughes, managing director of power quality specialist ...
Motor dealership security improved with range of sensors
Vehicle theft and malicious damage to cars and property can cost a motor dealership hundreds of thousands of pounds every year, not to mention the disruption to business and the impact on its brand reputation. Choosing the right security provider is therefore key, and so too working with the best and most reliable technologies.
MEMS accelerometers enable early detection of structural defects
Analog Devices has announced two three-axis MEMS accelerometers that perform high resolution vibration measurement with very low noise to enable the early detection of structural defects via wireless sensor networks. The low power consumption of the ADXL354 and ADXL355 accelerometers lengthens battery life and allows extended product usage by reducing the time between battery changes.
The quantum sniffer dog
As humans, we sniff out different scents and aromas using chemical receptors in our noses. In technological gas detection, however, there are a whole host of other methods available. One such method is to use infrared lasers, passing a laser beam through the gas to an adjacent separate detector, which measures the degree of light attenuation it causes.
Force-sensing technology provides smarter UI for tablets
Developer of force-sensing technology, Peratech, is aiming to give users of smartphones and tablets a more intuitive user experience while unleashing more creative opportunities for product and app developers by adding new ways for consumers to interact with their devices.
UL approval awarded to bimetal probe thermostats
The line of Bimetal Probe Thermostats from Selco is officially approved with UL (E145478, XAPX2), c-UL E145478(XAPX8) certifications. In addition to UL approvals, these are also RoHS compliant. This is a very exciting time for Selco as more and more customers are required to have UL approval on their finished product which includes all components that are used within.
Teaming up for simple and precise measurements
The new distance-measuring inductive sensors IR08, IR12 and IR18 from the Baumer AlphaProx family offer easy and reasonably priced analysis of the measurement results without any additional cost or effort for programming, thanks to linearised calibration curves and very low standard dispersion rates.
Are sensing technologies impacting our future?
Consumer applications, especially smartphones and tablets, have been the main driver of the MEMS and sensors industry for some time now. Today, a general slowdown has been clearly identified by the players and confirmed by the Yole Développement (Yole) report, Status of the MEMS Industry (Yole Développement, May 2016).
Type of AFM uses nanowires as tiny sensors
A type of atomic force microscope (AFM) uses nanowires as tiny sensors. Unlike standard AFM, the device with a nanowire sensor enables measurements of both the size and direction of forces. Physicists at the University of Basel and at the EPF Lausanne have described these results in the recent issue of Nature Nanotechnology.