Dr. Peter Fuhr

Each year there are a variety of meetings and conferences that pertain to various aspects of sensors, automation, instrumentation, and applications. In many of these meetings, the bulk of the meeting/conference is focused on describing past and current efforts with a look over the horizon as to...more >>

Most wireless technologies to be used for industrial asset tracking are nowhere near the point of offering plug-and-play operation. Before you decide to use a system based on RSSI, RuBee, or UWB in a RTLS, make sure you know what you're signing up for.

Real-time location systems require accuracy and reliability. Will RFID-, GPS-, or chirped frequency-based systems meet your minimum requirements?

Before you can come to grips with industrial real-time location systems, you must understand the environment in which they function and the communications that empower them.

There was significant channel congestion and the wireless systems didn't always function as the exhibitors had hoped.

The industrial world has spawned numerous standards bodies. Can they bridge the chasms between IT, RF, and wireless industrial bus protocols with standards that deliver coexistence and interoperability?

Wireless sensors installed inside a cargo container? Aren't they metal? Then the radio signal can't get out . . .or can it? Here's how mesh-networked 2.4 GHz, 802.15.4-compliant RF transceivers performed when placed within cargo containers.

Mesh networking has great promise, but you need to understand the subtleties involved to effectively use a mesh network to meet your goals.

This review of the components used in sensing and communications applications will help you assess the ease with which components used in one area can be applied in the other.

What does a cutting-edge technology from the communications arena have to do with fiber-optic sensing? Bandwidth, massive amounts of bandwidth.