Jun 19, 2009
By:Melanie Martella
One of the more noticeable aspects of this year's Sensors Expo was the prevalence of energy harvesting. Energy harvesting—using so-called wasted ambient energy and converting it to electricity to power some device of interest—is attracting a lot of attention for long-term wireless sensor network applications.
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Jun 12, 2009
By:Melanie Martella
I love attending Sensors Expo and not just because I get to meet very smart people who are doing interesting things. I also get to deliver the glad tidings to the winners of the Best of Sensors Expo Awards!
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Jun 5, 2009
By:Melanie Martella
This month, bendy memory elements and a detector to ensure medical personnel wash their hands.
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May 29, 2009
By:Bruce Kasanoff
If you want sensors to drive innovation and revenue growth, become obsessive about diversity. Involve a broad range of people with diverse backgrounds, skills and motivations. That's the lesson from two highly successful firms, Intel and Apple, who have taken different approaches to driving innovation with sensors. Each firm has harnessed diversity in startlingly effective ways.
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May 22, 2009
By:Melanie Martella
So far we've had sensors to monitor dams, levees, and bodies of water to give early warning of flooding and sensors around ocean shores to warn of impending tsunamis. Now, sensors are moving into the lakes to perform real-time monitoring there.
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May 15, 2009
When it comes to identifying industry segments that are expected to grow, medical gets listed (as far as I can tell) every time. The recent flurry of interest in wireless medical devices is just part of this ongoing trend.
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May 8, 2009
By:Melanie Martella
This month, smarter turbine blades, a brain injury monitoring prototype, and talking plants.
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May 1, 2009
By:David M. Hickey, SensorTran, Inc.
Some companies fail to recognize that the statement "You can't rush good engineers" is just an excuse for a poorly managed engineering environment. Although establishing an engineering environment that directs the efforts of engineers toward the company's objectives is critical to a company's survival, it doesn't always happen.
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Apr 24, 2009
By:Arves Stolpe, National Instruments
Industrial machines are getting complex. I am not saying it was ever an easy task, but today's automation professionals are challenged to increase efficiency and throughput on their systems to stay competitive in today's global economy. One technology that helps meet the high performance and efficiency needs of today's machines is the field-programmable gate array (FPGA).
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Apr 17, 2009
By:Roger H. Grace
I have previously addressed the topic of adopting a systems approach in the use of MEMS ("MEMS-Based Solutions"). There, I attempted to provide some rationale as to why this shift from device to system has happened. I believe that a great deal of this "MEMS device think" stems from the education undergone by many of the MEMS developers. University programs have focused on creating devices and reporting on their performance. Only recently have advanced R&D activities addressed system integration solutions.
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