Size Matters: Problems and Advantages Associated with Highly Miniaturized Sensors

OpenAIRE

Dahlin, Andreas B.

2012-01-01

There is no doubt that the recent advances in nanotechnology have made it possible to realize a great variety of new sensors with signal transduction mechanisms utilizing physical phenomena at the nanoscale. Some examples are conductivity measurements in nanowires, deflection of cantilevers and spectroscopy of plasmonic nanoparticles. The fact that these techniques are based on the special properties of nanostructural entities provides for extreme sensor miniaturization since a single structu...

A Miniaturized Force Sensor Based on Hair-Like Flexible Magnetized Cylinders Deposited Over a Giant Magnetoresistive Sensor

KAUST Repository

Ribeiro, Pedro

2017-06-13

The detection of force with higher resolution than observed in humans (similar to 1 mN) is of great interest for emerging technologies, especially surgical robots, since this level of resolution could allow these devices to operate in extremely sensitive environments without harming these. In this paper, we present a force sensor fabricated with a miniaturized footprint (9 mm(2)), based on the detection of the magnetic field generated by magnetized flexible pillars over a giant magnetoresistive sensor. When these flexible pillars deflect due to external loads, the stray field emitted by these will change, thus varying the GMR sensor resistance. A sensor with an array of five pillars with 200 mu m diameter and 1 mm height was fabricated, achieving a 0 to 26 mN measurement range and capable of detecting a minimum force feature of 630 mu N. A simulation model to predict the distribution of magnetic field generated by the flexible pillars on the sensitive area of the GMR sensor in function of the applied force was developed and validated against the experimental results reported in this paper. The sensor was finally tested as a texture classification system, with the ability of differentiating between four distinct surfaces varying between 0 and 162 mu m root mean square surface roughness.

A Miniaturized Force Sensor Based on Hair-Like Flexible Magnetized Cylinders Deposited Over a Giant Magnetoresistive Sensor

KAUST Repository

Ribeiro, Pedro; Khan, Mohammed Asadullah; Alfadhel, Ahmed; Kosel, Jü rgen; Franco, Fernando; Cardoso, Susana; Bernardino, Alexandre; Santos-Victor, Jose; Jamone, Lorenzo

2017-01-01

The detection of force with higher resolution than observed in humans (similar to 1 mN) is of great interest for emerging technologies, especially surgical robots, since this level of resolution could allow these devices to operate in extremely sensitive environments without harming these. In this paper, we present a force sensor fabricated with a miniaturized footprint (9 mm(2)), based on the detection of the magnetic field generated by magnetized flexible pillars over a giant magnetoresistive sensor. When these flexible pillars deflect due to external loads, the stray field emitted by these will change, thus varying the GMR sensor resistance. A sensor with an array of five pillars with 200 mu m diameter and 1 mm height was fabricated, achieving a 0 to 26 mN measurement range and capable of detecting a minimum force feature of 630 mu N. A simulation model to predict the distribution of magnetic field generated by the flexible pillars on the sensitive area of the GMR sensor in function of the applied force was developed and validated against the experimental results reported in this paper. The sensor was finally tested as a texture classification system, with the ability of differentiating between four distinct surfaces varying between 0 and 162 mu m root mean square surface roughness.

Miniaturized radiation detector with custom synthesized diamond crystal as sensor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grobbelaar, J.H.; Burns, R.C.; Nam, T.L.; Keddy, R.J.

1991-01-01

A miniaturized detector consisting of three custom built hybrid circuits, a counter and a miniature high voltage power supply was designed to operate with custom synthesized Type Ib diamond crystals as sensors. Thick-film technology was incorporated in the circuit design. With a crystal having a volume of approximately 10 mm 3 and containing approximately 60 ppm paramagnetic nitrogen, the detector was capable of measuring γ-ray dose-rates as low as 7.5 μ Gy h -1 . The response characteristic was linear up to 1 cGy h -1 . (orig.)

Closed loop control of the induction heating process using miniature magnetic sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Bentley, Anthony E.; Kelley, John Bruce; Zutavern, Fred J.

2003-05-20

A method and system for providing real-time, closed-loop control of the induction hardening process. A miniature magnetic sensor located near the outer surface of the workpiece measures changes in the surface magnetic field caused by changes in the magnetic properties of the workpiece as it heats up during induction heating (or cools down during quenching). A passive miniature magnetic sensor detects a distinct magnetic spike that appears when the saturation field, B.sub.sat, of the workpiece has been exceeded. This distinct magnetic spike disappears when the workpiece's surface temperature exceeds its Curie temperature, due to the sudden decrease in its magnetic permeability. Alternatively, an active magnetic sensor can measure changes in the resonance response of the monitor coil when the excitation coil is linearly swept over 0-10 MHz, due to changes in the magnetic permeability and electrical resistivity of the workpiece as its temperature increases (or decreases).

A miniaturized oxygen sensor integrated on fiber surface based on evanescent-wave induced fluorescence quenching

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Xiong, Yan [School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500 (China); Oil and Gas Field Applied Chemistry Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500 (China); Tan, Jun; Wang, Chengjie; Zhu, Ying [School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500 (China); Fang, Shenwen [School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500 (China); Oil and Gas Field Applied Chemistry Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500 (China); Wu, Jiayi; Wang, Qing [School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500 (China); Duan, Ming, E-mail: swpua124@126.com [State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500 (China); School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500 (China); Oil and Gas Field Applied Chemistry Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500 (China)

2016-11-15

In this work, a miniaturized sensor was integrated on fiber surface and developed for oxygen determination through evanescent-wave induced fluorescence quenching. The sensor was designed by using light emitting diode (LED) as light source and optical fiber as light transmission element. Tris(2,2′-bipyridyl) ruthenium ([Ru(bpy){sub 3}]{sup 2+}) fluorophore was immobilized in the organically modified silicates (ORMOSILs) film and coated onto the fiber surface. When light propagated by total internal reflection (TIR) in the fiber core, evanescent wave could be produced on the fiber surface and excite [Ru(bpy){sub 3}]{sup 2+} fluorophore to produce fluorescence emission. Then oxygen could be determinated by its quenching effect on the fluorescence and its concentration could be evaluated according to Stern–Volumer model. Through integrating evanescent wave excitation and fluorescence quenching on fiber surface, the sensor was successfully miniaturized and exhibit improved performances of high sensitivity (1.4), excellent repeatability (1.2%) and fast analysis (12 s) for oxygen determination. The sensor provided a newly portable method for in-situ and real-time measurement of oxygen and showed potential for practical oxygen analysis in different application fields. Furthermore, the fabrication of this sensor provides a miniaturized and portable detection platform for species monitoring by simple modular design. - Highlights: • ORMOSILs sensing film immobilized with [Ru(bpy){sub 3}]{sup 2+} fluorophore was coated on fiber surface. • Evanescent wave on the fiber surface was utilized as excitation source to produce fluorescence. • Oxygen was measured based on its quenching effect on evanescent wave-induce fluorescence. • Sensor fabrication was miniaturized by integrating detection and sensing elements on the fiber. • The modular design sensor provides a detection platform for other species monitoring.

High-Frequency Flush Mounted Miniature LOX Fiber-Optic Pressure Sensor, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Luna Innovations is teaming with the University of Alabama, Huntsville, to develop a miniature flush-mounted fiber-optic pressure sensor that will allow accurate,...

Miniaturized, low power FGMOSFET radiation sensor and wireless dosimeter system

KAUST Repository

Arsalan, Muhammad; Shamim, Atif; Tarr, Nicholas Garry; Roy, Langis

2013-01-01

A miniaturized floating gate (FG) MOSFET radiation sensor system is disclosed, The sensor preferably comprises a matched pair of sensor and reference FGMOSFETs wherein the sensor FGMOSFET has a larger area floating gate with an extension over a field oxide layer, for accumulation of charge and increased sensitivity. Elimination of a conventional control gate and injector gate reduces capacitance, and increases sensitivity, and allows for fabrication using standard low cost CMOS technology. A sensor system may be provided with integrated signal processing electronics, for monitoring a change in differential channel current I.sub.D, indicative of radiation dose, and an integrated negative bias generator for automatic pre-charging from a low voltage power source. Optionally, the system may be coupled to a wireless transmitter. A compact wireless sensor System on Package solution is presented, suitable for dosimetry for radiotherapy or other biomedical applications.

Miniaturized, low power FGMOSFET radiation sensor and wireless dosimeter system

KAUST Repository

Arsalan, Muhammad

2013-08-27

A miniaturized floating gate (FG) MOSFET radiation sensor system is disclosed, The sensor preferably comprises a matched pair of sensor and reference FGMOSFETs wherein the sensor FGMOSFET has a larger area floating gate with an extension over a field oxide layer, for accumulation of charge and increased sensitivity. Elimination of a conventional control gate and injector gate reduces capacitance, and increases sensitivity, and allows for fabrication using standard low cost CMOS technology. A sensor system may be provided with integrated signal processing electronics, for monitoring a change in differential channel current I.sub.D, indicative of radiation dose, and an integrated negative bias generator for automatic pre-charging from a low voltage power source. Optionally, the system may be coupled to a wireless transmitter. A compact wireless sensor System on Package solution is presented, suitable for dosimetry for radiotherapy or other biomedical applications.

High power VCSELs for miniature optical sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Geske, Jon; Wang, Chad; MacDougal, Michael; Stahl, Ron; Follman, David; Garrett, Henry; Meyrath, Todd; Snyder, Don; Golden, Eric; Wagener, Jeff; Foley, Jason

2010-02-01

Recent advances in Vertical-cavity Surface-emitting Laser (VCSEL) efficiency and packaging have opened up alternative applications for VCSELs that leverage their inherent advantages over light emitting diodes and edge-emitting lasers (EELs), such as low-divergence symmetric emission, wavelength stability, and inherent 2-D array fabrication. Improvements in reproducible highly efficient VCSELs have allowed VCSELs to be considered for high power and high brightness applications. In this talk, Aerius will discuss recent advances with Aerius' VCSELs and application of these VCSELs to miniature optical sensors such as rangefinders and illuminators.

MiniDSS: a low-power and high-precision miniaturized digital sun sensor

Science.gov (United States)

de Boer, B. M.; Durkut, M.; Laan, E.; Hakkesteegt, H.; Theuwissen, A.; Xie, N.; Leijtens, J. L.; Urquijo, E.; Bruins, P.

2017-11-01

A high-precision and low-power miniaturized digital sun sensor has been developed at TNO. The single-chip sun sensor comprises an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) on which an active pixel sensor (APS), read-out and processing circuitry as well as communication circuitry are combined. The design was optimized for low recurrent cost. The sensor is albedo insensitive and the prototype combines an accuracy in the order of 0.03° with a mass of just 72 g and a power consumption of only 65 mW.

All-Optical Frequency Modulated High Pressure MEMS Sensor for Remote and Distributed Sensing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Reck, Kasper; Thomsen, Erik Vilain; Hansen, Ole

2011-01-01

We present the design, fabrication and characterization of a new all-optical frequency modulated pressure sensor. Using the tangential strain in a circular membrane, a waveguide with an integrated nanoscale Bragg grating is strained longitudinally proportional to the applied pressure causing...... a shift in the Bragg wavelength. The simple and robust design combined with the small chip area of 1 × 1.8 mm2 makes the sensor ideally suited for remote and distributed sensing in harsh environments and where miniaturized sensors are required. The sensor is designed for high pressure applications up...

High-Frequency Flush Mounted Miniature LOX Fiber-Optic Pressure Sensor II, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Luna Innovations has teamed with the University of Alabama, Huntsville, to develop a miniature flush-mounted fiber-optic pressure sensor that will allow accurate,...

Measurement system for special surface mapping using miniature displacement sensors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zowade Martyna

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of the work was to design a special system for measurements of elements with repetitive geometry or assemblies with repeating components, set in a linear patterns. The main focus was based on developing a computer program for signal analysis from variable number of miniature displacement sensors. It was set that the response for displacement of measuring tip from each sensor was a 0-5 V voltage signal with possibility of using different type of sensors. Requirements were determined based on projected measurement method. A special design of sensor was made for testing the computer program. If the characteristics of the sensor is known, it is possible to compute the type A evaluation of uncertainty. The results are presented in XY chart on computer screen. The program allows the user to choose any number of the sensors and determine the distance between them. Also, the possibility of calibration of sensors’ set was provided. The test were conducted on a prototype handle for sensors, made on a 3D printer.

Miniature large range multi-axis force-torque sensor for biomechanical applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brookhuis, R A; Sanders, R G P; Ma, K; Lammerink, T S J; De Boer, M J; Krijnen, G J M; Wiegerink, R J

2015-01-01

A miniature force sensor for the measurement of forces and moments at a human fingertip is designed and realized. Thin silicon pillars inside the sensor provide in-plane guidance for shear force measurement and provide the spring constant in normal direction. A corrugated silicon ring around the force sensitive area provides the spring constant in shear direction and seals the interior of the sensor. To detect all load components, capacitive read-out is used. A novel electrode pattern results in a large shear force sensitivity. The fingertip force sensor has a wide force range of up to 60 N in normal direction, ± 30 N in shear direction and a torque range of ± 25 N mm. (paper)

Use of miniature magnetic sensors for real-time control of the induction heating process

Science.gov (United States)

Bentley, Anthony E.; Kelley, John Bruce; Zutavern, Fred J.

2002-01-01

A method of monitoring the process of induction heating a workpiece. A miniature magnetic sensor located near the outer surface of the workpiece measures changes in the surface magnetic field caused by changes in the magnetic properties of the workpiece as it heats up during induction heating (or cools down during quenching). A passive miniature magnetic sensor detects a distinct magnetic spike that appears when the saturation field, B.sub.sat, of the workpiece has been exceeded. This distinct magnetic spike disappears when the workpiece's surface temperature exceeds its Curie temperature, due to the sudden decrease in its magnetic permeability. Alternatively, an active magnetic sensor can also be used to measure changes in the resonance response of the monitor coil when the excitation coil is linearly swept over 0-10 MHz, due to changes in the magnetic permeability and electrical resistivity of the workpiece as its temperature increases (or decreases).

Miniaturized Air Dropped Sensors for Environmental Monitoring of Heavy Metals in Water, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This NASA SBIR program would develop air-dropped wireless networked sensors using miniaturized chemical field effect transistors (ChemFET) for the detection and...

Construction of a Chemical Sensor/Instrumentation Package Using Fiber Optic and Miniaturization Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Newton, R. L.

1999-01-01

The objective of this research was to construct a chemical sensor/instrumentation package that was smaller in weight and volume than conventional instrumentation. This reduction in weight and volume is needed to assist in further reducing the cost of launching payloads into space. To accomplish this, fiber optic sensors, miniaturized spectrometers, and wireless modems were employed. The system was evaluated using iodine as a calibration analyte.

Distributed cluster management techniques for unattended ground sensor networks

Science.gov (United States)

Essawy, Magdi A.; Stelzig, Chad A.; Bevington, James E.; Minor, Sharon

2005-05-01

Smart Sensor Networks are becoming important target detection and tracking tools. The challenging problems in such networks include the sensor fusion, data management and communication schemes. This work discusses techniques used to distribute sensor management and multi-target tracking responsibilities across an ad hoc, self-healing cluster of sensor nodes. Although miniaturized computing resources possess the ability to host complex tracking and data fusion algorithms, there still exist inherent bandwidth constraints on the RF channel. Therefore, special attention is placed on the reduction of node-to-node communications within the cluster by minimizing unsolicited messaging, and distributing the sensor fusion and tracking tasks onto local portions of the network. Several challenging problems are addressed in this work including track initialization and conflict resolution, track ownership handling, and communication control optimization. Emphasis is also placed on increasing the overall robustness of the sensor cluster through independent decision capabilities on all sensor nodes. Track initiation is performed using collaborative sensing within a neighborhood of sensor nodes, allowing each node to independently determine if initial track ownership should be assumed. This autonomous track initiation prevents the formation of duplicate tracks while eliminating the need for a central "management" node to assign tracking responsibilities. Track update is performed as an ownership node requests sensor reports from neighboring nodes based on track error covariance and the neighboring nodes geo-positional location. Track ownership is periodically recomputed using propagated track states to determine which sensing node provides the desired coverage characteristics. High fidelity multi-target simulation results are presented, indicating the distribution of sensor management and tracking capabilities to not only reduce communication bandwidth consumption, but to also

Miniature infrared hyperspectral imaging sensor for airborne applications

Science.gov (United States)

Hinnrichs, Michele; Hinnrichs, Bradford; McCutchen, Earl

2017-05-01

Pacific Advanced Technology (PAT) has developed an infrared hyperspectral camera, both MWIR and LWIR, small enough to serve as a payload on a miniature unmanned aerial vehicles. The optical system has been integrated into the cold-shield of the sensor enabling the small size and weight of the sensor. This new and innovative approach to infrared hyperspectral imaging spectrometer uses micro-optics and will be explained in this paper. The micro-optics are made up of an area array of diffractive optical elements where each element is tuned to image a different spectral region on a common focal plane array. The lenslet array is embedded in the cold-shield of the sensor and actuated with a miniature piezo-electric motor. This approach enables rapid infrared spectral imaging with multiple spectral images collected and processed simultaneously each frame of the camera. This paper will present our optical mechanical design approach which results in an infrared hyper-spectral imaging system that is small enough for a payload on a mini-UAV or commercial quadcopter. The diffractive optical elements used in the lenslet array are blazed gratings where each lenslet is tuned for a different spectral bandpass. The lenslets are configured in an area array placed a few millimeters above the focal plane and embedded in the cold-shield to reduce the background signal normally associated with the optics. We have developed various systems using a different number of lenslets in the area array. Depending on the size of the focal plane and the diameter of the lenslet array will determine the spatial resolution. A 2 x 2 lenslet array will image four different spectral images of the scene each frame and when coupled with a 512 x 512 focal plane array will give spatial resolution of 256 x 256 pixel each spectral image. Another system that we developed uses a 4 x 4 lenslet array on a 1024 x 1024 pixel element focal plane array which gives 16 spectral images of 256 x 256 pixel resolution each

Directed assembly of nanomaterials for miniaturized sensors by dip-pen nanolithography using precursor inks

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Ming

The advent of nanomaterials with enhanced properties and the means to pattern them in a controlled fashion have paved the way to construct miniaturized sensors for improved detection. However it remains a challenge for the traditional methods to create such sensors and sensor arrays. Dip pen nanolithography (DPN) can form nanostructures on a substrate by controlling the transfer of molecule inks. However, previous DPN can not pattern solid materials on insulating surfaces, which are necessary to form functional electronic devices. In the dissertation, the concept of reactive precursor inks for DPN is developed for the generation of solid functional nanostructures of the following materials: organic molecule, sol-gel material, and conducting polymer. First, the covalent bonding is unnecessary for DPN as shown in the colored ink DPN; therefore the numbers of molecules that can be patterned is extended beyond thiol or thiolated molecules. Subsequently, a reactive precursor strategy (sol) is developed to pattern inorganic or organic/inorganic composite nanostructures on silicon based substrates. The method works by hydrolysis of metal precursors in the water meniscus and allows the preparation of solid structures with controlled geometry beyond the individual molecule level. Then the SnO 2 nanostructures patterned between the gaps of electrodes are tested as gas sensors. Proof-of-concept experiments are demonstrated on miniaturized sensors that show fast response and recovery to certain gases. Furthermore, an eight-unit sensor array is fabricated on a chip using SnO2 sols that are doped with different metals. The multiplexed device can recognize different gases by comparing the response patterns with the reference patterns of known gases generated on the same array. At last, the idea of precursor ink for DPN is extended to construct conducting polymer based devices. By using an acid promoted polymerization approach, conducting polymers are patterned on silicon dioxide

Dynamic On-Chip micro Temperature and Flow Sensor for miniaturized lab-on-a-chip instruments

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The purpose of this project is to design, fabricate, and characterize a Dynamic On-Chip Flow and Temperature Sensor (DOCFlaTS) to mature and enable miniaturized...

Measurement of charge collection in irradiated miniature sensors for the upgrade of ATLAS Phase-II Strip tracker

CERN Document Server

Cindro, Vladimir; The ATLAS collaboration

2018-01-01

Miniature sensors with outer dimension of 10 mm x 10 mm were produced together with full size sensors for the innermost ring (R0) of the end-cap part in the upgraded ATLAS inner tracker (ITk). AC and DC coupled n-type strips with three different pitches (wide, default and narrow) were processed on high resistivity p-type FZ silicon substrates by Hamamatsu Photonics. Miniature sensors were irradiated with 70 MeV protons at CYRIC at Tohoku University (Japan) and reactor neutrons at Jožef Stefan Institute (Slovenia) to three different 1 MeV neutron equivalent fluences: 0.5, 1 and 2 x 1015 neqcm-2. The upper fluence range exceeds the highest anticipated in the inner-most part of the ATLAS ITk-Strips over the HL-LHC lifetime (~1.25 x 1015 neqcm2). Charge collection in test sensors has been evaluated systematically using 90Sr β- source and Alibava analogue readout system at reverse bias voltages up to 1000 V.

Measurement of charge collection in irradiated miniature sensors for the upgrade of ATLAS Phase-II Strip tracker

CERN Document Server

Cindro, Vladimir; The ATLAS collaboration

2017-01-01

Miniature sensors with outer dimension of 10 mm x 10 mm have been produced together with full size sensors for the innermost ring (R0) of the end-cap part in the upgraded ATLAS inner tracker (ITk). AC and DC coupled n-type strips with three different pitches (wide, default and narrow) were processed on high resistivity p-type FZ silicon substrates by Hamamatsu Photonics. Miniature sensors were irradiated with 70 MeV protons at CYRIC at Tohoku University (Japan) and reactor neutrons at Jožef Stefan Institute (Slovenia) to three different 1 MeV neutron equivalent fluences: 0.5, 1 and 2 x 1015 neqcm-2. The upper fluence range exceeds the highest anticipated in the inner-most part of the ATLAS ITk-Strips over the HL-LHC lifetime (~1.5 x 1015 neqcm2). Charge collection in test sensors has been evaluated systematically using 90Sr β-source and Alibava analogue readout system at reverse bias voltages up to 1000 V.

Miniature all-silica optical fiber pressure sensor with an ultrathin uniform diaphragm.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Wenhui; Wu, Nan; Tian, Ye; Niezrecki, Christopher; Wang, Xingwei

2010-04-26

This paper presents an all-silica miniature optical fiber pressure/acoustic sensor based on the Fabry-Perot (FP) interferometric principle. The endface of the etched optical fiber tip and silica thin diaphragm on it form the FP structure. The uniform and thin silica diaphragm was fabricated by etching away the silicon substrate from a commercial silicon wafer that has a thermal oxide layer. The thin film was directly thermally bonded to the endface of the optical fiber thus creating the Fabry-Perot cavity. Thin films with a thickness from 1microm to 3microm have been bonded successfully. The sensor shows good linearity and hysteresis during measurement. A sensor with 0.75 microm-thick diaphragm thinned by post silica etching was demonstrated to have a sensitivity of 11 nm/kPa. The new sensor has great potential to be used as a non-intrusive pressure sensor in a variety of sensing applications.

A miniature fiber-optic temperature sensor based on a Fabry–Perot interferometer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rong, Qiangzhou; Sun, Hao; Qiao, Xueguang; Zhang, Jing; Hu, Manli; Feng, Zhongyao

2012-01-01

A miniature fiber Fabry–Perot interferometer (FFPI) for temperature measurement is proposed and demonstrated. The sensor consists of a section of single-mode fiber (SMF) tip coated with a thin film of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) at the end of the fiber tip. A well-defined interference pattern is obtained as the result of the FFPI based on Fresnel reflection. The sensing head is extremely sensitive to ambient temperature, and provides a stable temperature sensitivity with a maximum value up to 173.5 pm °C −1 above 80 °C. This proposed sensor has advantages of low cost, ultra-compactness, a small degree of hysteresis and high stability. (paper)

Gas-leak localization using distributed ultrasonic sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Huseynov, Javid; Baliga, Shankar; Dillencourt, Michael; Bic, Lubomir; Bagherzadeh, Nader

2009-03-01

We propose an ultrasonic gas leak localization system based on a distributed network of sensors. The system deploys highly sensitive miniature Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) microphones and uses a suite of energy-decay (ED) and time-delay of arrival (TDOA) algorithms for localizing a source of a gas leak. Statistical tools such as the maximum likelihood (ML) and the least squares (LS) estimators are used for approximating the source location when closed-form solutions fail in the presence of ambient background nuisance and inherent electronic noise. The proposed localization algorithms were implemented and tested using a Java-based simulation platform connected to four or more distributed MEMS microphones observing a broadband nitrogen leak from an orifice. The performance of centralized and decentralized algorithms under ED and TDOA schemes is analyzed and compared in terms of communication overhead and accuracy in presence of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN).

Design and Fabrication of a Miniaturized GMI Magnetic Sensor Based on Amorphous Wire by MEMS Technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jiawen Chen

2018-03-01

Full Text Available A miniaturized Co-based amorphous wire GMI (Giant magneto-impedance magnetic sensor was designed and fabricated in this paper. The Co-based amorphous wire was used as the sense element due to its high sensitivity to the magnetic field. A three-dimensional micro coil surrounding the Co-based amorphous wire was fabricated by MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System technology, which was used to extract the electrical signal. The three-dimensional micro pick-up coil was designed and simulated with HFSS (High Frequency Structure Simulator software to determine the key parameters. Surface micro machining MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System technology was employed to fabricate the three-dimensional coil. The size of the developed amorphous wire magnetic sensor is 5.6 × 1.5 × 1.1 mm3. Helmholtz coil was used to characterize the performance of the device. The test results of the sensor sample show that the voltage change is 130 mV/Oe and the linearity error is 4.83% in the range of 0~45,000 nT. The results indicate that the developed miniaturized magnetic sensor has high sensitivity. By testing the electrical resistance of the samples, the results also showed high uniformity of each device.

A Miniaturized QEPAS Trace Gas Sensor with a 3D-Printed Acoustic Detection Module

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaotao Yang

2017-07-01

Full Text Available A 3D printing technique was introduced to a quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS sensor and is reported for the first time. The acoustic detection module (ADM was designed and fabricated using the 3D printing technique and the ADM volume was compressed significantly. Furthermore, a small grin lens was used for laser focusing and facilitated the beam adjustment in the 3D-printed ADM. A quartz tuning fork (QTF with a low resonance frequency of 30.72 kHz was used as the acoustic wave transducer and acetylene (C2H2 was chosen as the analyte. The reported miniaturized QEPAS trace gas sensor is useful in actual sensor applications.

Miniaturized Environmental Monitoring Instrumentation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

C. B. Freidhoff

1997-09-01

The objective of the Mass Spectrograph on a Chip (MSOC) program is the development of a miniature, multi-species gas sensor fabricated using silicon micromachining technology which will be orders of magnitude smaller and lower power consumption than a conventional mass spectrometer. The sensing and discrimination of this gas sensor are based on an ionic mass spectrograph, using magnetic and/or electrostatic fields. The fields cause a spatial separation of the ions according to their respective mass-to-charge ratio. The fabrication of this device involves the combination of microelectronics with micromechanically built sensors and, ultimately, vacuum pumps. The prototype of a chemical sensor would revolutionize the method of performing environmental monitoring for both commercial and government applications. The portable unit decided upon was the miniaturized gas chromatograph with a mass spectrometer detector, referred to as a GC/MS in the analytical marketplace.

A miniature inductive temperature sensor to monitor temperature noise in the coolant of an LMFBR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dean, S.A.; Sandham, C.W.

1980-01-01

A description is given of the design and performance of miniature inductive sensors developed to monitor fast temperature fluctuations in the sodium coolant above the core of a LMFBR. These instruments, designed to be installed within existing thermocouple containment thimbles, also provide a steady-state temperature indication for reactor control purposes. (author)

Miniaturized Bio-and Chemical-Sensors for Point-of-Care Monitoring of Chronic Kidney Diseases.

Science.gov (United States)

Tricoli, Antonio; Neri, Giovanni

2018-03-22

This review reports the latest achievements in point-of-care (POC) sensor technologies for the monitoring of ammonia, creatinine and urea in patients suffering of chronic kidney diseases (CKDs). Abnormal levels of these nitrogen biomarkers are found in the physiological fluids, such as blood, urine and sweat, of CKD patients. Delocalized at-home monitoring of CKD biomarkers via integration of miniaturized, portable, and low cost chemical- and bio-sensors in POC devices, is an emerging approach to improve patients' health monitoring and life quality. The successful monitoring of CKD biomarkers, performed on the different body fluids by means of sensors having strict requirements in term of size, cost, large-scale production capacity, response time and simple operation procedures for use in POC devices, is reported and discussed.

A miniature sensor for electrical field measurements in dusty planetary atmospheres

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Renno, N O; Rogacki, S; Kok, J F; Kirkham, H

2008-01-01

Dusty phenomena such as regular wind-blown dust, dust storms, and dust devils are the most important, currently active, geological processes on Mars. Electric fields larger than 100 kV/m have been measured in terrestrial dusty phenomena. Theoretical calculations predict that, close to the surface, the bulk electric fields in martian dusty phenomena reach the breakdown value of the isolating properties of thin martian air of about a few 10 kV/m. The fact that martian dusty phenomena are electrically active has important implications for dust lifting and atmospheric chemistry. Electric field sensors are usually grounded and distort the electric fields in their vicinity. Grounded sensors also produce large errors when subject to ion currents or impacts from clouds of charged particles. Moreover, they are incapable of providing information about the direction of the electric field, an important quantity. Finally, typical sensors with more than 10 cm of diameter are not capable of measuring electric fields at distances as small as a few cm from the surface. Measurements this close to the surface are necessary for studies of the effects of electric fields on dust lifting. To overcome these shortcomings, we developed the miniature electric-field sensor described in this article.

Miniaturized Bio-and Chemical-Sensors for Point-of-Care Monitoring of Chronic Kidney Diseases

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio Tricoli

2018-03-01

Full Text Available This review reports the latest achievements in point-of-care (POC sensor technologies for the monitoring of ammonia, creatinine and urea in patients suffering of chronic kidney diseases (CKDs. Abnormal levels of these nitrogen biomarkers are found in the physiological fluids, such as blood, urine and sweat, of CKD patients. Delocalized at-home monitoring of CKD biomarkers via integration of miniaturized, portable, and low cost chemical- and bio-sensors in POC devices, is an emerging approach to improve patients’ health monitoring and life quality. The successful monitoring of CKD biomarkers, performed on the different body fluids by means of sensors having strict requirements in term of size, cost, large-scale production capacity, response time and simple operation procedures for use in POC devices, is reported and discussed.

A 3-Axis Miniature Magnetic Sensor Based on a Planar Fluxgate Magnetometer with an Orthogonal Fluxguide.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Chih-Cheng; Huang, Jeff

2015-06-19

A new class of tri-axial miniature magnetometer consisting of a planar fluxgate structure with an orthogonal ferromagnetic fluxguide centrally situated over the magnetic cores is presented. The magnetic sensor possesses a cruciform ferromagnetic core placed diagonally upon the square excitation coil under which two pairs of pick-up coils for in-plane field detection are allocated. Effective principles and analysis of the magnetometer for 3-D field vectors are described and verified by numerically electromagnetic simulation for the excitation and magnetization of the ferromagnetic cores. The sensor is operated by applying the second-harmonic detection technique that can verify V-B relationship and device responsivity. Experimental characterization of the miniature fluxgate device demonstrates satisfactory spatial magnetic field detection results in terms of responsivity and noise spectrum. As a result, at an excitation frequency of 50 kHz, a maximum in-plane responsivity of 122.4 V/T appears and a maximum out-of-plane responsivity of 11.6 V/T is obtained as well. The minimum field noise spectra are found to be 0.11 nT/√Hz and 6.29 nT/√Hz, respectively, in X- and Z-axis at 1 Hz under the same excitation frequency. Compared with the previous tri-axis fluxgate devices, this planar magnetic sensor with an orthogonal fluxguide provides beneficial enhancement in both sensory functionality and manufacturing simplicity. More importantly, this novel device concept is considered highly suitable for the extension to a silicon sensor made by the current CMOS-MEMS technologies, thus emphasizing its emerging applications of field detection in portable industrial electronics.

Evolution of miniature detectors and focal plane arrays for infrared sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Watts, Louis A.

1993-06-01

Sensors that are sensitive in the infrared spectral region have been under continuous development since the WW2 era. A quest for the military advantage of 'seeing in the dark' has pushed thermal imaging technology toward high spatial and temporal resolution for night vision equipment, fire control, search track, and seeker 'homing' guidance sensing devices. Similarly, scientific applications have pushed spectral resolution for chemical analysis, remote sensing of earth resources, and astronomical exploration applications. As a result of these developments, focal plane arrays (FPA) are now available with sufficient sensitivity for both high spatial and narrow bandwidth spectral resolution imaging over large fields of view. Such devices combined with emerging opto-electronic developments in integrated FPA data processing techniques can yield miniature sensors capable of imaging reflected sunlight in the near IR and emitted thermal energy in the Mid-wave (MWIR) and longwave (LWIR) IR spectral regions. Robotic space sensors equipped with advanced versions of these FPA's will provide high resolution 'pictures' of their surroundings, perform remote analysis of solid, liquid, and gas matter, or selectively look for 'signatures' of specific objects. Evolutionary trends and projections of future low power micro detector FPA developments for day/night operation or use in adverse viewing conditions are presented in the following test.

Design of air blast pressure sensors based on miniature silicon membrane and piezoresistive gauges

Science.gov (United States)

Riondet, J.; Coustou, A.; Aubert, H.; Pons, P.; Lavayssière, M.; Luc, J.; Lefrançois, A.

2017-11-01

Available commercial piezoelectric pressure sensors are not able to accurately reproduce the ultra-fast transient pressure occurring during an air blast experiment. In this communication a new pressure sensor prototype based on a miniature silicon membrane and piezoresistive gauges is reported for significantly improving the performances in terms of time response. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of a pressure transducer having a fundamental resonant frequency almost ten times greater than the commercial piezoelectric sensors one. The sensor uses a 5μm-thick SOI membrane and four P-type silicon gauges (doping level ≅ 1019 at/cm3) in Wheatstone bridge configuration. To obtain a good trade-off between the fundamental mechanical resonant frequency and pressure sensitivity values, the typical dimension of the rectangular membrane is fixed to 30μm x 90μm with gauge dimension of 1μm x 5μm. The achieved simulated mechanical resonant frequency of these configuration is greater than 40MHz with a sensitivity of 0.04% per bar.

On the feasibility of measuring urban air pollution by wireless distributed sensor networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Moltchanov, Sharon; Levy, Ilan; Etzion, Yael; Lerner, Uri; Broday, David M; Fishbain, Barak

2015-01-01

Accurate evaluation of air pollution on human-wellbeing requires high-resolution measurements. Standard air quality monitoring stations provide accurate pollution levels but due to their sparse distribution they cannot capture the highly resolved spatial variations within cities. Similarly, dedicated field campaigns can use tens of measurement devices and obtain highly dense spatial coverage but normally deployment has been limited to short periods of no more than few weeks. Nowadays, advances in communication and sensory technologies enable the deployment of dense grids of wireless distributed air monitoring nodes, yet their sensor ability to capture the spatiotemporal pollutant variability at the sub-neighborhood scale has never been thoroughly tested. This study reports ambient measurements of gaseous air pollutants by a network of six wireless multi-sensor miniature nodes that have been deployed in three urban sites, about 150 m apart. We demonstrate the network's capability to capture spatiotemporal concentration variations at an exceptional fine resolution but highlight the need for a frequent in-situ calibration to maintain the consistency of some sensors. Accordingly, a procedure for a field calibration is proposed and shown to improve the system's performance. Overall, our results support the compatibility of wireless distributed sensor networks for measuring urban air pollution at a sub-neighborhood spatial resolution, which suits the requirement for highly spatiotemporal resolved measurements at the breathing-height when assessing exposure to urban air pollution. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Combining Electrochemical Sensors with Miniaturized Sample Preparation for Rapid Detection in Clinical Samples

Science.gov (United States)

Bunyakul, Natinan; Baeumner, Antje J.

2015-01-01

Clinical analyses benefit world-wide from rapid and reliable diagnostics tests. New tests are sought with greatest demand not only for new analytes, but also to reduce costs, complexity and lengthy analysis times of current techniques. Among the myriad of possibilities available today to develop new test systems, amperometric biosensors are prominent players—best represented by the ubiquitous amperometric-based glucose sensors. Electrochemical approaches in general require little and often enough only simple hardware components, are rugged and yet provide low limits of detection. They thus offer many of the desirable attributes for point-of-care/point-of-need tests. This review focuses on investigating the important integration of sample preparation with (primarily electrochemical) biosensors. Sample clean up requirements, miniaturized sample preparation strategies, and their potential integration with sensors will be discussed, focusing on clinical sample analyses. PMID:25558994

Design and Simulation Test of an Open D-Dot Voltage Sensor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yunjie Bai

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, sensor development focuses on miniaturization and non-contact measurement. According to the D-dot principle, a D-dot voltage sensor with a new structure was designed based on the differential D-dot sensor with a symmetrical structure, called an asymmetric open D-dot voltage sensor. It is easier to install. The electric field distribution of the sensor was analyzed through Ansoft Maxwell and an open D-dot voltage sensor was designed. This open D-voltage sensor is characteristic of accessible insulating strength and small electric field distortion. The steady and transient performance test under 10 kV-voltage reported satisfying performances of the designed open D-dot voltage sensor. It conforms to requirements for a smart grid measuring sensor in intelligence, miniaturization and facilitation.

Miniaturized integration of a fluorescence microscope

Science.gov (United States)

Ghosh, Kunal K.; Burns, Laurie D.; Cocker, Eric D.; Nimmerjahn, Axel; Ziv, Yaniv; Gamal, Abbas El; Schnitzer, Mark J.

2013-01-01

The light microscope is traditionally an instrument of substantial size and expense. Its miniaturized integration would enable many new applications based on mass-producible, tiny microscopes. Key prospective usages include brain imaging in behaving animals towards relating cellular dynamics to animal behavior. Here we introduce a miniature (1.9 g) integrated fluorescence microscope made from mass-producible parts, including semiconductor light source and sensor. This device enables high-speed cellular-level imaging across ∼0.5 mm2 areas in active mice. This capability allowed concurrent tracking of Ca2+ spiking in >200 Purkinje neurons across nine cerebellar microzones. During mouse locomotion, individual microzones exhibited large-scale, synchronized Ca2+ spiking. This is a mesoscopic neural dynamic missed by prior techniques for studying the brain at other length scales. Overall, the integrated microscope is a potentially transformative technology that permits distribution to many animals and enables diverse usages, such as portable diagnostics or microscope arrays for large-scale screens. PMID:21909102

A 3-Axis Miniature Magnetic Sensor Based on a Planar Fluxgate Magnetometer with an Orthogonal Fluxguide

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chih-Cheng Lu

2015-06-01

Full Text Available A new class of tri-axial miniature magnetometer consisting of a planar fluxgate structure with an orthogonal ferromagnetic fluxguide centrally situated over the magnetic cores is presented. The magnetic sensor possesses a cruciform ferromagnetic core placed diagonally upon the square excitation coil under which two pairs of pick-up coils for in-plane field detection are allocated. Effective principles and analysis of the magnetometer for 3-D field vectors are described and verified by numerically electromagnetic simulation for the excitation and magnetization of the ferromagnetic cores. The sensor is operated by applying the second-harmonic detection technique that can verify V-B relationship and device responsivity. Experimental characterization of the miniature fluxgate device demonstrates satisfactory spatial magnetic field detection results in terms of responsivity and noise spectrum. As a result, at an excitation frequency of 50 kHz, a maximum in-plane responsivity of 122.4 V/T appears and a maximum out-of-plane responsivity of 11.6 V/T is obtained as well. The minimum field noise spectra are found to be 0.11 nT/√Hz and 6.29 nT/√Hz, respectively, in X- and Z-axis at 1 Hz under the same excitation frequency. Compared with the previous tri-axis fluxgate devices, this planar magnetic sensor with an orthogonal fluxguide provides beneficial enhancement in both sensory functionality and manufacturing simplicity. More importantly, this novel device concept is considered highly suitable for the extension to a silicon sensor made by the current CMOS-MEMS technologies, thus emphasizing its emerging applications of field detection in portable industrial electronics.

Distributed sensor networks

CERN Document Server

Rubin, Donald B; Carlin, John B; Iyengar, S Sitharama; Brooks, Richard R; University, Clemson

2014-01-01

An Overview, S.S. Iyengar, Ankit Tandon, and R.R. BrooksMicrosensor Applications, David ShepherdA Taxonomy of Distributed Sensor Networks, Shivakumar Sastry and S.S. IyengarContrast with Traditional Systems, R.R. BrooksDigital Signal Processing Background, Yu Hen HuImage-Processing Background Lynne Grewe and Ben ShahshahaniObject Detection and Classification, Akbar M. SayeedParameter Estimation David FriedlanderTarget Tracking with Self-Organizing Distributed Sensors R.R. Brooks, C. Griffin, D.S. Friedlander, and J.D. KochCollaborative Signal and Information Processing: AnInformation-Directed Approach Feng Zhao, Jie Liu, Juan Liu, Leonidas Guibas, and James ReichEnvironmental Effects, David C. SwansonDetecting and Counteracting Atmospheric Effects Lynne L. GreweSignal Processing and Propagation for Aeroacoustic Sensor Networks, Richard J. Kozick, Brian M. Sadler, and D. Keith WilsonDistributed Multi-Target Detection in Sensor Networks Xiaoling Wang, Hairong Qi, and Steve BeckFoundations of Data Fusion f...

Simulation of whispering-gallery-mode resonance shifts for optical miniature biosensors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Quan Haiyong [Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, 98 Brett Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854 (United States); Guo Zhixiong [Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, 98 Brett Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854 (United States)]. E-mail: guo@jove.rutgers.edu

2005-06-15

Finite element analyses are made of the shifts of resonance frequencies of whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) for a fiber-microsphere coupling miniature sensor. The time-domain Maxwell's equations were adopted to describe the near-field radiation transport and solved by the in-plane TE waves application mode of the FEMLAB. The electromagnetic fields as well as the radiation energy distributions can be easily obtained by the finite element analysis. The resonance intensity spectrum curves in the frequency range from 213 to 220THz were studied under different biosensing conditions. Emphasis was put on the analyses of resonance shift sensitivity influenced by changes of the effective size of the sensor resonator (i.e., microsphere) and/or the refractive index of the medium surrounding the resonator. It is estimated that the WGM biosensor can distinguish molecular size change to the level of 0.1nm and refractive index change in the magnitude of {approx}10{sup -3} even with the use of a general optical spectrum analyzer of one GHz linewidth. Finally, the potential of the WGM miniature biosensor for monitoring peptide growth is investigated and a linear sensor curve is obtained.

Optical fiber sensors-based temperature distribution measurement in ex vivo radiofrequency ablation with submillimeter resolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Macchi, Edoardo Gino; Tosi, Daniele; Braschi, Giovanni; Gallati, Mario; Cigada, Alfredo; Busca, Giorgio; Lewis, Elfed

2014-01-01

Radiofrequency thermal ablation (RFTA) induces a high-temperature field in a biological tissue having steep spatial (up to 6°C∕mm) and temporal (up to 1°C∕s) gradients. Applied in cancer care, RFTA produces a localized heating, cytotoxic for tumor cells, and is able to treat tumors with sizes up to 3 to 5 cm in diameter. The online measurement of temperature distribution at the RFTA point of care has been previously carried out with miniature thermocouples and optical fiber sensors, which exhibit problems of size, alteration of RFTA pattern, hysteresis, and sensor density worse than 1 sensor∕cm. In this work, we apply a distributed temperature sensor (DTS) with a submillimeter spatial resolution for the monitoring of RFTA in porcine liver tissue. The DTS demodulates the chaotic Rayleigh backscattering pattern with an interferometric setup to obtain the real-time temperature distribution. A measurement chamber has been set up with the fiber crossing the tissue along different diameters. Several experiments have been carried out measuring the space-time evolution of temperature during RFTA. The present work showcases the temperature monitoring in RFTA with an unprecedented spatial resolution and is exportable to in vivo measurement; the acquired data can be particularly useful for the validation of RFTA computational models.

Electric field distribution and current emission in a miniaturized geometrical diode

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Jinpu; Wong, Patrick Y.; Yang, Penglu; Lau, Y. Y.; Tang, W.; Zhang, Peng

2017-06-01

We study the electric field distribution and current emission in a miniaturized geometrical diode. Using Schwarz-Christoffel transformation, we calculate exactly the electric field inside a finite vacuum cathode-anode (A-K) gap with a single trapezoid protrusion on one of the electrode surfaces. It is found that there is a strong field enhancement on both electrodes near the protrusion, when the ratio of the A-K gap distance to the protrusion height d /h spot checked against COMSOL simulations. We calculate the effective field enhancement factor for the field emission current, by integrating the local Fowler-Nordheim current density along the electrode surfaces. We systematically examine the electric field enhancement and the current rectification of the miniaturized geometrical diode for various geometric dimensions and applied electric fields.

OmniBird: a miniature PTZ NIR sensor system for UCAV day/night autonomous operations

Science.gov (United States)

Yi, Steven; Li, Hui

2007-04-01

Through a SBIR funding from NAVAIR, we have successfully developed an innovative, miniaturized, and lightweight PTZ UCAV imager called OmniBird for UCAV taxiing. The proposed OmniBird will be able to fit in a small space. The designed zoom capability allows it to acquire focused images for targets ranging from 10 to 250 feet. The innovative panning mechanism also allows the system to have a field of view of +/- 100 degrees within the provided limited spacing (6 cubic inches). The integrated optics, camera sensor, and mechanics solution will allow the OmniBird to stay optically aligned and shock-proof under harsh environments.

Mathematical theories of distributed sensor networks

CERN Document Server

Iyengar, Sitharama S; Balakrishnan, N

2014-01-01

Mathematical Theory of Distributed Sensor Networks demonstrates how mathematical theories can be used to provide distributed sensor modeling and to solve important problems such as coverage hole detection and repair. The book introduces the mathematical and computational structure by discussing what they are, their applications and how they differ from traditional systems. The text also explains how mathematics are utilized to provide efficient techniques implementing effective coverage, deployment, transmission, data processing, signal processing, and data protection within distributed sensor networks. Finally, the authors discuss some important challenges facing mathematics to get more incite to the multidisciplinary area of distributed sensor networks.

Investigating The Neutron Flux Distribution Of The Miniature Neutron Source Reactor MNSR Type

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nguyen Hoang Hai; Do Quang Binh

2011-01-01

Neutron flux distribution is the important characteristic of nuclear reactor. In this article, four energy group neutron flux distributions of the miniature neutron source reactor MNSR type versus radial and axial directions are investigated in case the control rod is fully withdrawn. In addition, the effect of control rod positions on the thermal neutron flux distribution is also studied. The group constants for all reactor components are generated by the WIMSD code, and the neutron flux distributions are calculated by the CITATION code. The results show that the control rod positions only affect in the planning area for distribution in the region around the control rod. (author)

Surface biofunctionalization and production of miniaturized sensor structures using aerosol printing technologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grunwald, Ingo; Groth, Esther; Wirth, Ingo; Schumacher, Julian; Maiwald, Marcus; Zoellmer, Volker; Busse, Matthias

2010-01-01

The work described in this paper demonstrates that very small protein and DNA structures can be applied to various substrates without denaturation using aerosol printing technology. This technology allows high-resolution deposition of various nanoscaled metal and biological suspensions. Before printing, metal and biological suspensions were formulated and then nebulized to form an aerosol which is aerodynamically focused on the printing module of the system in order to achieve precise structuring of the nanoscale material on a substrate. In this way, it is possible to focus the aerosol stream at a distance of about 5 mm from the printhead to the surface. This technology is useful for printing fluorescence-marked proteins and printing enzymes without affecting their biological activity. Furthermore, higher molecular weight DNA can be printed without shearing. The advantages, such as printing on complex, non-planar 3D structured surfaces, and disadvantages of the aerosol printing technology are also discussed and are compared with other printing technologies. In addition, miniaturized sensor structures with line thicknesses in the range of a few micrometers are fabricated by applying a silver sensor structure to glass. After sintering using an integrated laser or in an oven process, electrical conductivity is achieved within the sensor structure. Finally, we printed BSA in small micrometre-sized areas within the sensor structure using the same deposition system. The aerosol printing technology combined with material development offers great advantages for future-oriented applications involving biological surface functionalization on small areas. This is important for innovative biomedical micro-device development and for production solutions which bridge the disciplines of biology and electronics.

Surface biofunctionalization and production of miniaturized sensor structures using aerosol printing technologies.

Science.gov (United States)

Grunwald, Ingo; Groth, Esther; Wirth, Ingo; Schumacher, Julian; Maiwald, Marcus; Zoellmer, Volker; Busse, Matthias

2010-03-01

The work described in this paper demonstrates that very small protein and DNA structures can be applied to various substrates without denaturation using aerosol printing technology. This technology allows high-resolution deposition of various nanoscaled metal and biological suspensions. Before printing, metal and biological suspensions were formulated and then nebulized to form an aerosol which is aerodynamically focused on the printing module of the system in order to achieve precise structuring of the nanoscale material on a substrate. In this way, it is possible to focus the aerosol stream at a distance of about 5 mm from the printhead to the surface. This technology is useful for printing fluorescence-marked proteins and printing enzymes without affecting their biological activity. Furthermore, higher molecular weight DNA can be printed without shearing. The advantages, such as printing on complex, non-planar 3D structured surfaces, and disadvantages of the aerosol printing technology are also discussed and are compared with other printing technologies. In addition, miniaturized sensor structures with line thicknesses in the range of a few micrometers are fabricated by applying a silver sensor structure to glass. After sintering using an integrated laser or in an oven process, electrical conductivity is achieved within the sensor structure. Finally, we printed BSA in small micrometre-sized areas within the sensor structure using the same deposition system. The aerosol printing technology combined with material development offers great advantages for future-oriented applications involving biological surface functionalization on small areas. This is important for innovative biomedical micro-device development and for production solutions which bridge the disciplines of biology and electronics.

Surface biofunctionalization and production of miniaturized sensor structures using aerosol printing technologies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Grunwald, Ingo; Groth, Esther; Wirth, Ingo; Schumacher, Julian; Maiwald, Marcus; Zoellmer, Volker; Busse, Matthias, E-mail: ingo.wirth@ifam.frauhofer.d [Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Applied Materials Research (IFAM), Wiener Strasse 12, 28359 Bremen (Germany)

2010-03-15

The work described in this paper demonstrates that very small protein and DNA structures can be applied to various substrates without denaturation using aerosol printing technology. This technology allows high-resolution deposition of various nanoscaled metal and biological suspensions. Before printing, metal and biological suspensions were formulated and then nebulized to form an aerosol which is aerodynamically focused on the printing module of the system in order to achieve precise structuring of the nanoscale material on a substrate. In this way, it is possible to focus the aerosol stream at a distance of about 5 mm from the printhead to the surface. This technology is useful for printing fluorescence-marked proteins and printing enzymes without affecting their biological activity. Furthermore, higher molecular weight DNA can be printed without shearing. The advantages, such as printing on complex, non-planar 3D structured surfaces, and disadvantages of the aerosol printing technology are also discussed and are compared with other printing technologies. In addition, miniaturized sensor structures with line thicknesses in the range of a few micrometers are fabricated by applying a silver sensor structure to glass. After sintering using an integrated laser or in an oven process, electrical conductivity is achieved within the sensor structure. Finally, we printed BSA in small micrometre-sized areas within the sensor structure using the same deposition system. The aerosol printing technology combined with material development offers great advantages for future-oriented applications involving biological surface functionalization on small areas. This is important for innovative biomedical micro-device development and for production solutions which bridge the disciplines of biology and electronics.

Sensor distributions for structural monitoring

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ulriksen, Martin Dalgaard; Bernal, Dionisio

2017-01-01

Deciding on the spatial distribution of output sensors for vibration-based structural health monitoring (SHM) is a task that has been, and still is, studied extensively. Yet, when referring to the conventional damage characterization hierarchy, composed of detection, localization, and quantificat......Deciding on the spatial distribution of output sensors for vibration-based structural health monitoring (SHM) is a task that has been, and still is, studied extensively. Yet, when referring to the conventional damage characterization hierarchy, composed of detection, localization......, and quantification, it is primarily the first component that has been addressed with regard to optimal sensor placement. In this particular context, a common approach is to distribute sensors, of which the amount is determined a priori, such that some scalar function of the probability of detection for a pre......-defined set of damage patterns is maximized. Obviously, the optimal sensor distribution, in terms of damage detection, is algorithm-dependent, but studies have showed how correlation generally exists between the different strategies. However, it still remains a question how this “optimality” correlates...

Autonomous vision networking: miniature wireless sensor networks with imaging technology

Science.gov (United States)

Messinger, Gioia; Goldberg, Giora

2006-09-01

The recent emergence of integrated PicoRadio technology, the rise of low power, low cost, System-On-Chip (SOC) CMOS imagers, coupled with the fast evolution of networking protocols and digital signal processing (DSP), created a unique opportunity to achieve the goal of deploying large-scale, low cost, intelligent, ultra-low power distributed wireless sensor networks for the visualization of the environment. Of all sensors, vision is the most desired, but its applications in distributed sensor networks have been elusive so far. Not any more. The practicality and viability of ultra-low power vision networking has been proven and its applications are countless, from security, and chemical analysis to industrial monitoring, asset tracking and visual recognition, vision networking represents a truly disruptive technology applicable to many industries. The presentation discusses some of the critical components and technologies necessary to make these networks and products affordable and ubiquitous - specifically PicoRadios, CMOS imagers, imaging DSP, networking and overall wireless sensor network (WSN) system concepts. The paradigm shift, from large, centralized and expensive sensor platforms, to small, low cost, distributed, sensor networks, is possible due to the emergence and convergence of a few innovative technologies. Avaak has developed a vision network that is aided by other sensors such as motion, acoustic and magnetic, and plans to deploy it for use in military and commercial applications. In comparison to other sensors, imagers produce large data files that require pre-processing and a certain level of compression before these are transmitted to a network server, in order to minimize the load on the network. Some of the most innovative chemical detectors currently in development are based on sensors that change color or pattern in the presence of the desired analytes. These changes are easily recorded and analyzed by a CMOS imager and an on-board DSP processor

Sensors in Distributed Mixed Reality Environments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Felix Hamza-Lup

2005-04-01

Full Text Available A distributed mixed-reality (MR or virtual reality (VR environment implies the cooperative engagement of a set of software and hardware resources. With the advances in sensors and computer networks we have seen an increase in the number of potential MR/VR applications that require large amounts of information from the real world collected through sensors (e.g. position and orientation tracking sensors. These sensors collect data from the real environment in real-time at different locations and a distributed environment connecting them must assure data distribution among collaborative sites at interactive speeds. With the advances in sensor technology, we envision that in future systems a significant amount of data will be collected from sensors and devices attached to the participating nodes This paper proposes a new architecture for sensor based interactive distributed MR/VR environments that falls in-between the atomistic peer-to-peer model and the traditional client-server model. Each node is autonomous and fully manages its resources and connectivity. The dynamic behavior of the nodes is dictated by the human participants that manipulate the sensors attached to these nodes.

Novel miniaturized sensors for potentiometric batch and flow-injection analysis (FIA) of perchlorate in fireworks and propellants.

Science.gov (United States)

Almeer, Saeed H M A; Zogby, Ibrahim A; Hassan, Saad S M

2014-11-01

Three planar miniaturized perchlorate membrane sensors (3×5 mm(2)) are prepared using a flexible Kaptan substrate coated with nitron-perchlorate (NT-ClO4) [sensor 1], methylene blue-perchlorate (MB-ClO4) [sensor II] and indium-porphyrin (In-Por) [sensor III] as electroactive materials in PVC membranes plasticized with 2-NPPE. Sensors I, II and III display near-Nernstian response for 1.0×10(-5)-1.0×10(-2), 3.1×10(-5)-1.0×10(-2) and 3.1×10(-6)-1.0×10(-2) mol L(-1) ClO4(-) with lower detection limits of 6.1×10(-6), 6.9×10(-6) and 1.2×10(-6) mol L(-1), and anionic calibration slopes of 50.9±0.4, 48.4±0.4 and 57.7±0.3 mV decade(-1), respectively. Methods for determining perchlorate using these sensors offer many attractive advantages including simplicity, flexibility, cost effectiveness, wide linear dynamic response range (0.1-1000 ppm), low detection limit (copper, iron, sodium), color brighten (linseed oil) and regulators (aluminum flakes) which are commonly used in the formulations. The sensor is also used for perchlorate assessment in some propellant powders. The results fairly agree with data obtained by ion-chromatography. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Miniature scientific-grade induction magnetometer for cubesats

Science.gov (United States)

Pronenko, Vira

2017-04-01

One of the main areas of space research is the study and forecasting of space weather. The society is more and more depending nowadays on satellite technology and communications, so it is vital to understand the physical process in the solar-terrestrial system which may disturb them. Besides the solar radiation and Space Weather effects, the Earth's ionosphere is also modified by the ever increasing industrial activity. There have been also multiple reports relating VLF and ELF wave activity to atmospheric storms and geological processes, such as earthquakes and volcanic activity. For advancing in these fields, the AC magnetic field permanent monitoring is crucial. Using the cubesat technology would allow increasing the number of measuring points dramatically. It is necessary to mention that the cubesats use for scientific research requires the miniaturization of scientific sensors what is a serious problem because the reduction of their dimensions leads, as a rule, to the parameters degradation, especially of sensitivity threshold. Today, there is no basic model of a sensitive miniature induction magnetometer. Even the smallest one of the known - for the Bepi-Colombo mission to Mercury - is too big for cubesats. The goal of the present report is to introduce the new design of miniature three-component sensor for measurement of alternative vector magnetic fields - induction magnetometer (IM). The study directions were concentrated on the ways and possibilities to create the miniature magnetometer with best combination of parameters. For this a set of scientific and technological problems, mostly aimed at the sensor construction improvement, was solved. The most important parameter characterizing magnetometer quality is its own magnetic noise level (NL). The analysis of the NL influencing factors is made and the ways to decrease it are discussed in the report. Finally, the LEMI-151 IM was developed for the SEAM cubesat mission with optimal performances within the

Ultra-miniature wireless temperature sensor for thermal medicine applications.

Science.gov (United States)

Khairi, Ahmad; Hung, Shih-Chang; Paramesh, Jeyanandh; Fedder, Gary; Rabin, Yoed

2011-01-01

This study presents a prototype design of an ultra-miniature, wireless, battery-less, and implantable temperature-sensor, with applications to thermal medicine such as cryosurgery, hyperthermia, and thermal ablation. The design aims at a sensory device smaller than 1.5 mm in diameter and 3 mm in length, to enable minimally invasive deployment through a hypodermic needle. While the new device may be used for local temperature monitoring, simultaneous data collection from an array of such sensors can be used to reconstruct the 3D temperature field in the treated area, offering a unique capability in thermal medicine. The new sensory device consists of three major subsystems: a temperature-sensing core, a wireless data-communication unit, and a wireless power reception and management unit. Power is delivered wirelessly to the implant from an external source using an inductive link. To meet size requirements while enhancing reliability and minimizing cost, the implant is fully integrated in a regular foundry CMOS technology (0.15 μm in the current study), including the implant-side inductor of the power link. A temperature-sensing core that consists of a proportional-to-absolute-temperature (PTAT) circuit has been designed and characterized. It employs a microwatt chopper stabilized op-amp and dynamic element-matched current sources to achieve high absolute accuracy. A second order sigma-delta (Σ-Δ) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is designed to convert the temperature reading to a digital code, which is transmitted by backscatter through the same antenna used for receiving power. A high-efficiency multi-stage differential CMOS rectifier has been designed to provide a DC supply to the sensing and communication subsystems. This paper focuses on the development of the all-CMOS temperature sensing core circuitry part of the device, and briefly reviews the wireless power delivery and communication subsystems.

Distributed Sensor Fusion for Scalar Field Mapping Using Mobile Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

La, Hung Manh; Sheng, Weihua

2013-04-01

In this paper, autonomous mobile sensor networks are deployed to measure a scalar field and build its map. We develop a novel method for multiple mobile sensor nodes to build this map using noisy sensor measurements. Our method consists of two parts. First, we develop a distributed sensor fusion algorithm by integrating two different distributed consensus filters to achieve cooperative sensing among sensor nodes. This fusion algorithm has two phases. In the first phase, the weighted average consensus filter is developed, which allows each sensor node to find an estimate of the value of the scalar field at each time step. In the second phase, the average consensus filter is used to allow each sensor node to find a confidence of the estimate at each time step. The final estimate of the value of the scalar field is iteratively updated during the movement of the mobile sensors via weighted average. Second, we develop the distributed flocking-control algorithm to drive the mobile sensors to form a network and track the virtual leader moving along the field when only a small subset of the mobile sensors know the information of the leader. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate our proposed algorithms.

Miniaturized multi-sensor for aquatic studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Birkelund, Karen; Hyldgård, Anders; Mortensen, Dennis; Thomsen, Erik V

2011-01-01

We have developed and fabricated a multi-sensor chip for fisheries' research and demonstrated the functionality under controlled conditions. The outer dimensions of the sensor chip are 3.0 × 7.4 × 0.8 mm 3 and both sides of the chip are utilized for sensors. Hereby a more compact chip is achieved that allows for direct exposure to the seawater and thereby more accurate measurements. The chip contains a piezo-resistive pressure sensor, a pn-junction photodiode sensitive to visible light, a four-terminal platinum resistor for temperature measurement and four conductivity electrodes for the determination of the salinity of saltwater. Pressure, light intensity, temperature and salinity are all essential parameters when mapping the migration route of fish. The pressure sensor has a sensitivity of S = 1.44 × 10 −7 Pa −1 and is optimized to 20 bar pressure; the light sensor has a quantum efficiency between 52% and 74% in the range of visible light. The temperature sensor responds linearly with temperature and has a temperature coefficient of resistance of 2.9 × 10 −3 K −1 . The conductivity sensor can measure the salinity with an accuracy of ±0.1 psu. This is all together the smallest and best functioning fully integrated MEMS-based multi-sensor made to date for this specific application. However, each single-sensor performance can be optimized by introducing a considerably more complicated process sequence. In this paper, a new simpler process for integrating the four sensors on one single chip is presented in details for the first time. Further, an optimized performance of the individual sensors is presented

Photoacoustic CO2-Sensor for Automotive Applications

OpenAIRE

Huber, J.; Weber, C.; Eberhardt, A.; Wöllenstein, J.

2016-01-01

We present a field-tested miniaturized spectroscopic CO2 sensor which is based on the photoacoustic effect. The sensor is developed for automotive applications and considers the requirements for the usage in vehicles. The sensor measures two measurement ranges simultaneously: The monitoring of the indoor air quality and the detection of possible leakages of the coolant in CO2 air-conditioning systems. The sensor consists of a miniaturized innovative photoacoustic sensor unit with integrated e...

A Miniature Magnetic-Force-Based Three-Axis AC Magnetic Sensor with Piezoelectric/Vibrational Energy-Harvesting Functions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chiao-Fang Hung

2017-02-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we demonstrate a miniature magnetic-force-based, three-axis, AC magnetic sensor with piezoelectric/vibrational energy-harvesting functions. For magnetic sensing, the sensor employs a magnetic–mechanical–piezoelectric configuration (which uses magnetic force and torque, a compact, single, mechanical mechanism, and the piezoelectric effect to convert x-axis and y-axis in-plane and z-axis magnetic fields into piezoelectric voltage outputs. Under the x-axis magnetic field (sine-wave, 100 Hz, 0.2–3.2 gauss and the z-axis magnetic field (sine-wave, 142 Hz, 0.2–3.2 gauss, the voltage output with the sensitivity of the sensor are 1.13–26.15 mV with 8.79 mV/gauss and 1.31–8.92 mV with 2.63 mV/gauss, respectively. In addition, through this configuration, the sensor can harness ambient vibrational energy, i.e., possessing piezoelectric/vibrational energy-harvesting functions. Under x-axis vibration (sine-wave, 100 Hz, 3.5 g and z-axis vibration (sine-wave, 142 Hz, 3.8 g, the root-mean-square voltage output with power output of the sensor is 439 mV with 0.333 μW and 138 mV with 0.051 μW, respectively. These results show that the sensor, using this configuration, successfully achieves three-axis magnetic field sensing and three-axis vibration energy-harvesting. Due to these features, the three-axis AC magnetic sensor could be an important design reference in order to develop future three-axis AC magnetic sensors, which possess energy-harvesting functions, for practical industrial applications, such as intelligent vehicle/traffic monitoring, processes monitoring, security systems, and so on.

Distributed intelligent sensor network for the rehabilitation of Parkinson's patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Ying, Hong; Schlösser, Mario; Schnitzer, Andreas; Schäfer, Thorsten; Schläfke, Marianne E; Leonhardt, Steffen; Schiek, Michael

2011-03-01

The coordination between locomotion and respiration of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients is reduced or even absent. The degree of this disturbance is assumed to be associated with the disease severity [S. Schiermeier, D. Schäfer, T. Schäfer, W. Greulich, and M. E. Schläfke, "Breathing and locomotion in patients with Parkinson's disease," Eur. J. Physiol., vol. 443, No. 1, pp. 67-71, Jul. 2001]. To enable a long-term and online analysis of the locomotion-respiration coordination for scientific purpose, we have developed a distributed wireless communicating network. We aim to integrate biofeedback protocols with the real-time analysis of the locomotion-respiration coordination in the system to aid rehabilitation of PD patients. The network of sensor nodes is composed of intelligent network operating devices (iNODEs). The miniaturized iNODE contains a continuous data acquisition system based on microcontroller, local data storage, capability of on-sensor digital signal processing in real time, and wireless communication based on IEEE 802.15.4. Force sensing resistors and respiratory inductive plethysmography are applied for motion and respiration sensing, respectively. A number of experiments have been undertaken in clinic and laboratory to test the system. It shall facilitate identification of therapeutic effects on PD, allowing to measure the patients' health status, and to aid in the rehabilitation of PD patients.

Miniaturized measurement system for ammonia in air

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Timmer, B.H.; van Delft, K.M.; Otjes, R.P.; Olthuis, Wouter; van den Berg, Albert

2004-01-01

The development of a miniaturized ammonia sensor made using microsystem technology is described. Gas is sampled in a sampler comprising two opposite channels separated by a gas permeable, water repellent polypropylene membrane. Subsequently, the acid sample solution is pumped into a selector where

SMARBot: a modular miniature mobile robot platform

Science.gov (United States)

Meng, Yan; Johnson, Kerry; Simms, Brian; Conforth, Matthew

2008-04-01

Miniature robots have many advantages over their larger counterparts, such as low cost, low power, and easy to build a large scale team for complex tasks. Heterogeneous multi miniature robots could provide powerful situation awareness capability due to different locomotion capabilities and sensor information. However, it would be expensive and time consuming to develop specific embedded system for different type of robots. In this paper, we propose a generic modular embedded system architecture called SMARbot (Stevens Modular Autonomous Robot), which consists of a set of hardware and software modules that can be configured to construct various types of robot systems. These modules include a high performance microprocessor, a reconfigurable hardware component, wireless communication, and diverse sensor and actuator interfaces. The design of all the modules in electrical subsystem, the selection criteria for module components, and the real-time operating system are described. Some proofs of concept experimental results are also presented.

Miniaturized multi-sensor for aquatic studies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Birkelund, Karen; Hyldgård, Anders; Mortensen, Dennis

2011-01-01

that allows for direct exposure to the seawater and thereby more accurate measurements. The chip contains a piezo-resistive pressure sensor, a pn-junction photodiode sensitive to visible light, a four-terminal platinum resistor for temperature measurement and four conductivity electrodes for the determination...... of the salinity of saltwater. Pressure, light intensity, temperature and salinity are all essential parameters when mapping the migration route of fish. The pressure sensor has a sensitivity of S = 1.44 × 10−7 Pa−1 and is optimized to 20 bar pressure; the light sensor has a quantum efficiency between 52% and 74......We have developed and fabricated a multi-sensor chip for fisheries’ research and demonstrated the functionality under controlled conditions. The outer dimensions of the sensor chip are 3.0 × 7.4 × 0.8 mm3 and both sides of the chip are utilized for sensors. Hereby a more compact chip is achieved...

A miniature rigid/flex salinity measurement device fabricated using printed circuit processing techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Broadbent, H A; Ketterl, T P; Reid, C S

2010-01-01

The design, fabrication and initial performance of a single substrate, miniature, low-cost conductivity, temperature, depth (CTD) sensor board with interconnects are presented. In combination these sensors measure ocean salinity. The miniature CTD device board was designed and fabricated as the main component of a 50 mm × 25 mm × 25 mm animal-attached biologger. The board was fabricated using printed circuit processes and consists of two distinct regions on a continuous single liquid crystal polymer substrate: an 18 mm × 28 mm rigid multi-metal sensor section and a 72 mm long flexible interconnect section. The 95% confidence intervals for the conductivity, temperature and pressure sensors were demonstrated to be ±0.083 mS cm −1 , 0.01 °C, and ±0.135 dbar, respectively.

Miniaturized multiwavelength digital holography sensor for extensive in-machine tool measurement

Science.gov (United States)

Seyler, Tobias; Fratz, Markus; Beckmann, Tobias; Bertz, Alexander; Carl, Daniel

2017-06-01

In this paper we present a miniaturized digital holographic sensor (HoloCut) for operation inside a machine tool. With state-of-the-art 3D measurement systems, short-range structures such as tool marks cannot be resolved inside a machine tool chamber. Up to now, measurements had to be conducted outside the machine tool and thus processing data are generated offline. The sensor presented here uses digital multiwavelength holography to get 3D-shape-information of the machined sample. By using three wavelengths, we get a large artificial wavelength with a large unambiguous measurement range of 0.5mm and achieve micron repeatability even in the presence of laser speckles on rough surfaces. In addition, a digital refocusing algorithm based on phase noise is implemented to extend the measurement range beyond the limits of the artificial wavelength and geometrical depth-of-focus. With complex wave field propagation, the focus plane can be shifted after the camera images have been taken and a sharp image with extended depth of focus is constructed consequently. With 20mm x 20mm field of view the sensor enables measurement of both macro- and micro-structure (such as tool marks) with an axial resolution of 1 µm, lateral resolution of 7 µm and consequently allows processing data to be generated online which in turn qualifies it as a machine tool control. To make HoloCut compact enough for operation inside a machining center, the beams are arranged in two planes: The beams are split into reference beam and object beam in the bottom plane and combined onto the camera in the top plane later on. Using a mechanical standard interface according to DIN 69893 and having a very compact size of 235mm x 140mm x 215mm (WxHxD) and a weight of 7.5 kg, HoloCut can be easily integrated into different machine tools and extends no more in height than a typical processing tool.

Miniaturized and Wireless Optical Neurotransmitter Sensor for Real-Time Monitoring of Dopamine in the Brain.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Min H; Yoon, Hargsoon; Choi, Sang H; Zhao, Fei; Kim, Jongsung; Song, Kyo D; Lee, Uhn

2016-11-10

Real-time monitoring of extracellular neurotransmitter concentration offers great benefits for diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders and diseases. This paper presents the study design and results of a miniaturized and wireless optical neurotransmitter sensor (MWONS) for real-time monitoring of brain dopamine concentration. MWONS is based on fluorescent sensing principles and comprises a microspectrometer unit, a microcontroller for data acquisition, and a Bluetooth wireless network for real-time monitoring. MWONS has a custom-designed application software that controls the operation parameters for excitation light sources, data acquisition, and signal processing. MWONS successfully demonstrated a measurement capability with a limit of detection down to a 100 nanomole dopamine concentration, and high selectivity to ascorbic acid (90:1) and uric acid (36:1).

Miniature sensor suitable for electronic nose applications

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pinnaduwage, L. A.; Gehl, A. C.; Allman, S. L.

2007-01-01

A major research effort has been devoted over the years for the development of chemical sensors for the detection of chemical and explosive vapors. However, the deployment of such chemical sensors will require the use of multiple sensors probably tens of sensors in a sensor package to achieve sel...... microcantilevers. The sensor can detect parts-per-trillion concentrations of DMMP within 10 s exposure times. The small size of the sensor makes it ideally suited for electronic nose applications. © 2007 American Institute of Physics....

MASM: a market architecture for sensor management in distributed sensor networks

Science.gov (United States)

Viswanath, Avasarala; Mullen, Tracy; Hall, David; Garga, Amulya

2005-03-01

Rapid developments in sensor technology and its applications have energized research efforts towards devising a firm theoretical foundation for sensor management. Ubiquitous sensing, wide bandwidth communications and distributed processing provide both opportunities and challenges for sensor and process control and optimization. Traditional optimization techniques do not have the ability to simultaneously consider the wildly non-commensurate measures involved in sensor management in a single optimization routine. Market-oriented programming provides a valuable and principled paradigm to designing systems to solve this dynamic and distributed resource allocation problem. We have modeled the sensor management scenario as a competitive market, wherein the sensor manager holds a combinatorial auction to sell the various items produced by the sensors and the communication channels. However, standard auction mechanisms have been found not to be directly applicable to the sensor management domain. For this purpose, we have developed a specialized market architecture MASM (Market architecture for Sensor Management). In MASM, the mission manager is responsible for deciding task allocations to the consumers and their corresponding budgets and the sensor manager is responsible for resource allocation to the various consumers. In addition to having a modified combinatorial winner determination algorithm, MASM has specialized sensor network modules that address commensurability issues between consumers and producers in the sensor network domain. A preliminary multi-sensor, multi-target simulation environment has been implemented to test the performance of the proposed system. MASM outperformed the information theoretic sensor manager in meeting the mission objectives in the simulation experiments.

Distributed Fiber-Optic Sensors for Vibration Detection.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xin; Jin, Baoquan; Bai, Qing; Wang, Yu; Wang, Dong; Wang, Yuncai

2016-07-26

Distributed fiber-optic vibration sensors receive extensive investigation and play a significant role in the sensor panorama. Optical parameters such as light intensity, phase, polarization state, or light frequency will change when external vibration is applied on the sensing fiber. In this paper, various technologies of distributed fiber-optic vibration sensing are reviewed, from interferometric sensing technology, such as Sagnac, Mach-Zehnder, and Michelson, to backscattering-based sensing technology, such as phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometer, polarization-optical time domain reflectometer, optical frequency domain reflectometer, as well as some combinations of interferometric and backscattering-based techniques. Their operation principles are presented and recent research efforts are also included. Finally, the applications of distributed fiber-optic vibration sensors are summarized, which mainly include structural health monitoring and perimeter security, etc. Overall, distributed fiber-optic vibration sensors possess the advantages of large-scale monitoring, good concealment, excellent flexibility, and immunity to electromagnetic interference, and thus show considerable potential for a variety of practical applications.

Distributed temperature sensor testing in liquid sodium

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gerardi, Craig, E-mail: cgerardi@anl.gov; Bremer, Nathan; Lisowski, Darius; Lomperski, Stephen

2017-02-15

Highlights: • Distributed temperature sensors measured high-resolution liquid-sodium temperatures. • DTSs worked well up to 400 °C. • A single DTS simultaneously detected sodium level and temperature. - Abstract: Rayleigh-backscatter-based distributed fiber optic sensors were immersed in sodium to obtain high-resolution liquid-sodium temperature measurements. Distributed temperature sensors (DTSs) functioned well up to 400 °C in a liquid sodium environment. The DTSs measured sodium column temperature and the temperature of a complex geometrical pattern that leveraged the flexibility of fiber optics. A single Ø 360 μm OD sensor registered dozens of temperatures along a length of over one meter at 100 Hz. We also demonstrated the capability to use a single DTS to simultaneously detect thermal interfaces (e.g. sodium level) and measure temperature.

Miniaturized wireless sensor network

OpenAIRE

Lecointre , Aubin; Dragomirescu , Daniela; Dubuc , David; Grenier , Katia; Pons , Patrick; Aubert , Hervé; Müller , A.; Berthou , Pascal; Gayraud , Thierry; Plana , Robert

2006-01-01

This paper addresses an overview of the wireless sensor networks. It is shown that MEMS/NEMS technologies and SIP concept are well suited for advanced architectures. It is also shown analog architectures have to be compatible with digital signal techniques to develop smart network of microsystem.

Progress in miniaturization of a multichannel optical fiber Bragg grating sensor interrogator

Science.gov (United States)

Lopatin, Craig M.; Mahmood, Shah; Mendoza, Edgar; Moslehi, Behzad; Black, Richard; Chau, Kelvin; Oblea, Levy

2007-07-01

An effort to develop a miniaturized multichannel optical fiber Bragg grating sensor interrogator was initiated in 2006 under the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program. The goal was to develop an interrogator that would be sufficiently small and light to be incorporated into a health monitoring system for use on tactical missiles. Two companies, Intelligent Fiber Optic Systems Corporation (IFOS) and Redondo Optics, were funded in Phase I, and this paper describes the prototype interrogators that were developed. The two companies took very different approaches: IFOS focused on developing a unit that would have a high channel count and high resolution, using off-the-shelf components, while Redondo Optics chose to develop a unit that would be very small and lightweight, using custom designed integrated optical chips. It is believed that both approaches will result in interrogators that will be significantly small, lighter, and possibly even more precise than what is currently commercially available. This paper will also briefly describe some of the sensing concepts that may be used to interrogate the health of the solid rocket motors used in many missile systems. The sponsor of this program was NAVAIR PMA 280.

Development of a miniaturized watch-type dosimeter using a silicon printed-circuit board

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ishikura, Takeshi; Sakamaki, Tsuyoshi; Matsumoto, Iwao; Aoyama, Kei; Nakamura, Takashi

2008-01-01

The electrical personal dosimeter using a silicon semiconductor sensor has the advantage of real time response and alarm function, which can prevent unexpected over-exposure. We tried to develop a miniaturized watch-type dosimeter by incorporating the silicon semiconductor sensor on a silicon printed-circuit board. Thin film resistors, capacitors and wiring patterns are formed on a downsized printed-circuit board. Electronic parts including transistors are mounted by soldering on the silicon printed-circuit board. The dosimeter is further miniaturized by downsizing the amplifier circuit, the semiconductor radiation sensor, the power supply circuit, setting parts and alarm part. The performance of the developed dosimeter was evaluated with respect to the gamma-ray spectra, angular dependence and linearity to dose equivalent rate, and it was confirmed that this dosimeter has the performance equivalent to a commercially available electrical personal dosimeter. (author)

Distributed temperature sensor testing in liquid sodium

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gerardi, Craig; Bremer, Nathan; Lisowski, Darius; Lomperski, Stephen

2017-02-01

Rayleigh-backscatter-based distributed fiber optic sensors were immersed in sodium to obtain high-resolution liquid-sodium temperature measurements. Distributed temperature sensors (DTSs) functioned well up to 400°C in a liquid sodium environment. The DTSs measured sodium column temperature and the temperature of a complex geometrical pattern that leveraged the flexibility of fiber optics. A single Ø 360 lm OD sensor registered dozens of temperatures along a length of over one meter at 100 Hz. We also demonstrated the capability to use a single DTS to simultaneously detect thermal interfaces (e.g. sodium level) and measure temperature.

Autonomous stair-climbing with miniature jumping robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Stoeter, Sascha A; Papanikolopoulos, Nikolaos

2005-04-01

The problem of vision-guided control of miniature mobile robots is investigated. Untethered mobile robots with small physical dimensions of around 10 cm or less do not permit powerful onboard computers because of size and power constraints. These challenges have, in the past, reduced the functionality of such devices to that of a complex remote control vehicle with fancy sensors. With the help of a computationally more powerful entity such as a larger companion robot, the control loop can be closed. Using the miniature robot's video transmission or that of an observer to localize it in the world, control commands can be computed and relayed to the inept robot. The result is a system that exhibits autonomous capabilities. The framework presented here solves the problem of climbing stairs with the miniature Scout robot. The robot's unique locomotion mode, the jump, is employed to hop one step at a time. Methods for externally tracking the Scout are developed. A large number of real-world experiments are conducted and the results discussed.

A Radar-Enabled Collaborative Sensor Network Integrating COTS Technology for Surveillance and Tracking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Murat Demirer

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The feasibility of using Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS sensor nodes is studied in a distributed network, aiming at dynamic surveillance and tracking of ground targets. Data acquisition by low-cost ( < $50 US miniature low-power radar through a wireless mote is described. We demonstrate the detection, ranging and velocity estimation, classification and tracking capabilities of the mini-radar, and compare results to simulations and manual measurements. Furthermore, we supplement the radar output with other sensor modalities, such as acoustic and vibration sensors. This method provides innovative solutions for detecting, identifying, and tracking vehicles and dismounts over a wide area in noisy conditions. This study presents a step towards distributed intelligent decision support and demonstrates effectiveness of small cheap sensors, which can complement advanced technologies in certain real-life scenarios.

Miniature, Single Channel, Memory-Based, High-G Acceleration Recorder (Millipen)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rohwer, Tedd A.

1999-01-01

The Instrumentation and Telemetry Departments at Sandia National Laboratories have been instrumenting earth penetrators for over thirty years. Recorded acceleration data is used to quantify penetrator performance. Penetrator testing has become more difficult as desired impact velocities have increased. This results in the need for small-scale test vehicles and miniature instrumentation. A miniature recorder will allow penetrator diameters to significantly decrease, opening the window of testable parameters. Full-scale test vehicles will also benefit from miniature recorders by using a less intrusive system to instrument internal arming, fusing, and firing components. This single channel concept is the latest design in an ongoing effort to miniaturize the size and reduce the power requirement of acceleration instrumentation. A micro-controller/memory based system provides the data acquisition, signal conditioning, power regulation, and data storage. This architecture allows the recorder, including both sensor and electronics, to occupy a volume of less than 1.5 cubic inches, draw less than 200mW of power, and record 15kHz data up to 40,000 gs. This paper will describe the development and operation of this miniature acceleration recorder

Distributed Sensor Network Software Development Testing through Simulation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brennan, Sean M. [Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)

2003-12-01

The distributed sensor network (DSN) presents a novel and highly complex computing platform with dif culties and opportunities that are just beginning to be explored. The potential of sensor networks extends from monitoring for threat reduction, to conducting instant and remote inventories, to ecological surveys. Developing and testing for robust and scalable applications is currently practiced almost exclusively in hardware. The Distributed Sensors Simulator (DSS) is an infrastructure that allows the user to debug and test software for DSNs independent of hardware constraints. The exibility of DSS allows developers and researchers to investigate topological, phenomenological, networking, robustness and scaling issues, to explore arbitrary algorithms for distributed sensors, and to defeat those algorithms through simulated failure. The user speci es the topology, the environment, the application, and any number of arbitrary failures; DSS provides the virtual environmental embedding.

Wireless sensor networks distributed consensus estimation

CERN Document Server

Chen, Cailian; Guan, Xinping

2014-01-01

This SpringerBrief evaluates the cooperative effort of sensor nodes to accomplish high-level tasks with sensing, data processing and communication. The metrics of network-wide convergence, unbiasedness, consistency and optimality are discussed through network topology, distributed estimation algorithms and consensus strategy. Systematic analysis reveals that proper deployment of sensor nodes and a small number of low-cost relays (without sensing function) can speed up the information fusion and thus improve the estimation capability of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). This brief also investiga

Woven electrochemical fabric-based test sensors (WEFTS): a new class of multiplexed electrochemical sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Choudhary, Tripurari; Rajamanickam, G P; Dendukuri, Dhananjaya

2015-05-07

We present textile weaving as a new technique for the manufacture of miniature electrochemical sensors with significant advantages over current fabrication techniques. Biocompatible silk yarn is used as the material for fabrication instead of plastics and ceramics used in commercial sensors. Silk yarns are coated with conducting inks and reagents before being handloom-woven as electrodes into patches of fabric to create arrays of sensors, which are then laminated, cut and packaged into individual sensors. Unlike the conventionally used screen-printing, which results in wastage of reagents, yarn coating uses only as much reagent and ink as required. Hydrophilic and hydrophobic yarns are used for patterning so that sample flow is restricted to a small area of the sensor. This simple fluidic control is achieved with readily available materials. We have fabricated and validated individual sensors for glucose and hemoglobin and a multiplexed sensor, which can detect both analytes. Chronoamperometry and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) were used to detect glucose and hemoglobin, respectively. Industrial quantities of these sensors can be fabricated at distributed locations in the developing world using existing skills and manufacturing facilities. We believe such sensors could find applications in the emerging area of wearable sensors for chemical testing.

Maternal-fetal distribution studies of two radiolabeled compounds in miniature Hormel pigs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ikeda, G.J.; Michel, T.C.; Miller, E.; Sager, A.O.; Sapienza, P.P.

1986-01-01

Distribution patterns of two radiolabeled compounds were determined in miniature Hormel pigs and their litters late in pregnancy. Seven sows (45 fetuses) were administered (1- 14 C) acrylamide (5 mg/kg IV) and four sows (30 fetuses) were administered (N-methyl- 14 C) betaine (5 mg/kg IV). Acrylamide was distributed readily to both maternal and fetal tissues; a placental factor of 31% was calculated. A blood/brain factor was insignificant in sows and nonexistent in fetal pigs. The placental factor for betaine was calculated to be 97.8% for maternal and fetal tissues. The blood/brain factor was 89% in sows but nonexistent in fetuses. Maternal liver and kidney accounted for the highest levels of radioactivity for both compounds. Although placenta protects the minipig fetus to some degree from substances in maternal blood, the fetal brain is unprotected from possible injury or damage if a foreign substance enters the fetal blood stream

Miniature piezoresistive solid state integrated pressure sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Kahng, S. K.

1980-01-01

The characteristics of silicon pressure sensors with an ultra-small diaphragm are described. The pressure sensors utilize rectangular diaphragm as small as 0.0127 x 0.0254 cm and a p-type Wheatstone bridge consisting of diffused piezoresistive elements, 0.000254 cm by 0.00254 cm. These sensors exhibit as high as 0.5 MHz natural frequency and 1 mV/V/psi pressure sensitivity. Fabrication techniques and high frequency results from shock tube testing and low frequency comparison with microphones are presented.

High-sensitivity low-noise miniature fluxgate magnetometers using a flip chip conceptual design.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Chih-Cheng; Huang, Jeff; Chiu, Po-Kai; Chiu, Shih-Liang; Jeng, Jen-Tzong

2014-07-30

This paper presents a novel class of miniature fluxgate magnetometers fabricated on a print circuit board (PCB) substrate and electrically connected to each other similar to the current "flip chip" concept in semiconductor package. This sensor is soldered together by reversely flipping a 5 cm × 3 cm PCB substrate to the other identical one which includes dual magnetic cores, planar pick-up coils, and 3-D excitation coils constructed by planar Cu interconnections patterned on PCB substrates. Principles and analysis of the fluxgate sensor are introduced first, and followed by FEA electromagnetic modeling and simulation for the proposed sensor. Comprehensive characteristic experiments of the miniature fluxgate device exhibit favorable results in terms of sensitivity (or "responsivity" for magnetometers) and field noise spectrum. The sensor is driven and characterized by employing the improved second-harmonic detection technique that enables linear V-B correlation and responsivity verification. In addition, the double magnitude of responsivity measured under very low frequency (1 Hz) magnetic fields is experimentally demonstrated. As a result, the maximum responsivity of 593 V/T occurs at 50 kHz of excitation frequency with the second harmonic wave of excitation; however, the minimum magnetic field noise is found to be 0.05 nT/Hz(1/2) at 1 Hz under the same excitation. In comparison with other miniature planar fluxgates published to date, the fluxgate magnetic sensor with flip chip configuration offers advances in both device functionality and fabrication simplicity. More importantly, the novel design can be further extended to a silicon-based micro-fluxgate chip manufactured by emerging CMOS-MEMS technologies, thus enriching its potential range of applications in modern engineering and the consumer electronics market.

Multipoint dynamically reconfigure adaptive distributed fiber optic acoustic emission sensor (FAESense) system for condition based maintenance

Science.gov (United States)

Mendoza, Edgar; Prohaska, John; Kempen, Connie; Esterkin, Yan; Sun, Sunjian; Krishnaswamy, Sridhar

2010-09-01

This paper describes preliminary results obtained under a Navy SBIR contract by Redondo Optics Inc. (ROI), in collaboration with Northwestern University towards the development and demonstration of a next generation, stand-alone and fully integrated, dynamically reconfigurable, adaptive fiber optic acoustic emission sensor (FAESense™) system for the in-situ unattended detection and localization of shock events, impact damage, cracks, voids, and delaminations in new and aging critical infrastructures found in ships, submarines, aircraft, and in next generation weapon systems. ROI's FAESense™ system is based on the integration of proven state-of-the-art technologies: 1) distributed array of in-line fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) sensors sensitive to strain, vibration, and acoustic emissions, 2) adaptive spectral demodulation of FBG sensor dynamic signals using two-wave mixing interferometry on photorefractive semiconductors, and 3) integration of all the sensor system passive and active optoelectronic components within a 0.5-cm x 1-cm photonic integrated circuit microchip. The adaptive TWM demodulation methodology allows the measurement of dynamic high frequnency acoustic emission events, while compensating for passive quasi-static strain and temperature drifts. It features a compact, low power, environmentally robust 1-inch x 1-inch x 4-inch small form factor (SFF) package with no moving parts. The FAESense™ interrogation system is microprocessor-controlled using high data rate signal processing electronics for the FBG sensors calibration, temperature compensation and the detection and analysis of acoustic emission signals. Its miniaturized package, low power operation, state-of-the-art data communications, and low cost makes it a very attractive solution for a large number of applications in naval and maritime industries, aerospace, civil structures, the oil and chemical industry, and for homeland security applications.

Microsupercapacitors as miniaturized energy-storage components for on-chip electronics

Science.gov (United States)

Kyeremateng, Nana Amponsah; Brousse, Thierry; Pech, David

2017-01-01

The push towards miniaturized electronics calls for the development of miniaturized energy-storage components that can enable sustained, autonomous operation of electronic devices for applications such as wearable gadgets and wireless sensor networks. Microsupercapacitors have been targeted as a viable route for this purpose, because, though storing less energy than microbatteries, they can be charged and discharged much more rapidly and have an almost unlimited lifetime. In this Review, we discuss the progress and the prospects of integrated miniaturized supercapacitors. In particular, we discuss their power performances and emphasize the need of a three-dimensional design to boost their energy-storage capacity. This is obtainable, for example, through self-supported nanostructured electrodes. We also critically evaluate the performance metrics currently used in the literature to characterize microsupercapacitors and offer general guidelines to benchmark performances towards prospective applications.

Novel Modified Optical Fibers for High Temperature In-Situ Miniaturized Gas Sensors in Advanced Fossil Energy Systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pickrell, Gary [Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, VA (United States); Scott, Brian [Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, VA (United States)

2014-06-30

This report covers the technical progress on the program “Novel Modified Optical Fibers for High Temperature In-Situ Miniaturized Gas Sensors in Advanced Fossil Energy Systems”, funded by the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, and performed by the Materials Science & Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering Departments at Virginia Tech, and summarizes technical progress from July 1st, 2005 –June 30th, 2014. The objective of this program was to develop novel fiber materials for high temperature gas sensors based on evanescent wave absorption in optical fibers. This project focused on two primary areas: the study of a sapphire photonic crystal fiber (SPCF) for operation at high temperature and long wavelengths, and a porous glass based fiber optic sensor for gas detection. The sapphire component of the project focused on the development of a sapphire photonic crystal fiber, modeling of the new structures, fabrication of the optimal structure, development of a long wavelength interrogation system, testing of the optical properties, and gas and temperature testing of the final sensor. The fabrication of the 6 rod SPCF gap bundle (diameter of 70μm) with a hollow core was successfully constructed with lead-in and lead-out 50μm diameter fiber along with transmission and gas detection testing. Testing of the sapphire photonic crystal fiber sensor capabilities with the developed long wavelength optical system showed the ability to detect CO₂ at or below 1000ppm at temperatures up to 1000°C. Work on the porous glass sensor focused on the development of a porous clad solid core optical fiber, a hollow core waveguide, gas detection capabilities at room and high temperature, simultaneous gas species detection, suitable joining technologies for the lead-in and lead-out fibers and the porous sensor, sensor system sensitivity improvement, signal processing improvement, relationship between pore structure and fiber

Miniaturized high performance sensors for space plasmas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Young, D.T.

1996-01-01

Operating under ever more constrained budgets, NASA has turned to a new paradigm for instrumentation and mission development in which smaller, faster, better, cheaper is of primary consideration for future space plasma investigations. The author presents several examples showing the influence of this new paradigm on sensor development and discuss certain implications for the scientific return from resource constrained sensors. The author also discusses one way to improve space plasma sensor performance which is to search out new technologies, measurement techniques and instrument analogs from related fields including among others, laboratory plasma physics

Biosensing with Paper-Based Miniaturized Printed Electrodes–A Modern Trend

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Célia M. Silveira

2016-09-01

Full Text Available From the bench-mark work on microfluidics from the Whitesides’s group in 2007, paper technology has experienced significant growth, particularly regarding applications in biomedical research and clinical diagnostics. Besides the structural properties supporting microfluidics, other advantageous features of paper materials, including their versatility, disposability and low cost, show off the great potential for the development of advanced and eco-friendly analytical tools. Consequently, paper was quickly employed in the field of electrochemical sensors, being an ideal material for producing custom, tailored and miniaturized devices. Stencil-, inkjet-, or screen-printing are the preferential techniques for electrode manufacturing. Not surprisingly, we witnessed a rapid increase in the number of publications on paper based screen-printed sensors at the turn of the past decade. Among the sensing strategies, various biosensors, coupling electrochemical detectors with biomolecules, have been proposed. This work provides a critical review and a discussion on the future progress of paper technology in the context of miniaturized printed electrochemical biosensors.

Biosensing with Paper-Based Miniaturized Printed Electrodes–A Modern Trend

Science.gov (United States)

Silveira, Célia M.; Monteiro, Tiago; Almeida, Maria Gabriela

2016-01-01

From the bench-mark work on microfluidics from the Whitesides’s group in 2007, paper technology has experienced significant growth, particularly regarding applications in biomedical research and clinical diagnostics. Besides the structural properties supporting microfluidics, other advantageous features of paper materials, including their versatility, disposability and low cost, show off the great potential for the development of advanced and eco-friendly analytical tools. Consequently, paper was quickly employed in the field of electrochemical sensors, being an ideal material for producing custom, tailored and miniaturized devices. Stencil-, inkjet-, or screen-printing are the preferential techniques for electrode manufacturing. Not surprisingly, we witnessed a rapid increase in the number of publications on paper based screen-printed sensors at the turn of the past decade. Among the sensing strategies, various biosensors, coupling electrochemical detectors with biomolecules, have been proposed. This work provides a critical review and a discussion on the future progress of paper technology in the context of miniaturized printed electrochemical biosensors. PMID:27690119

Biosensing with Paper-Based Miniaturized Printed Electrodes-A Modern Trend.

Science.gov (United States)

Silveira, Célia M; Monteiro, Tiago; Almeida, Maria Gabriela

2016-09-28

From the bench-mark work on microfluidics from the Whitesides's group in 2007, paper technology has experienced significant growth, particularly regarding applications in biomedical research and clinical diagnostics. Besides the structural properties supporting microfluidics, other advantageous features of paper materials, including their versatility, disposability and low cost, show off the great potential for the development of advanced and eco-friendly analytical tools. Consequently, paper was quickly employed in the field of electrochemical sensors, being an ideal material for producing custom, tailored and miniaturized devices. Stencil-, inkjet-, or screen-printing are the preferential techniques for electrode manufacturing. Not surprisingly, we witnessed a rapid increase in the number of publications on paper based screen-printed sensors at the turn of the past decade. Among the sensing strategies, various biosensors, coupling electrochemical detectors with biomolecules, have been proposed. This work provides a critical review and a discussion on the future progress of paper technology in the context of miniaturized printed electrochemical biosensors.

Lightweight, Miniature Inertial Measurement System

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Liang; Crassidis, Agamemnon

2012-01-01

A miniature, lighter-weight, and highly accurate inertial navigation system (INS) is coupled with GPS receivers to provide stable and highly accurate positioning, attitude, and inertial measurements while being subjected to highly dynamic maneuvers. In contrast to conventional methods that use extensive, groundbased, real-time tracking and control units that are expensive, large, and require excessive amounts of power to operate, this method focuses on the development of an estimator that makes use of a low-cost, miniature accelerometer array fused with traditional measurement systems and GPS. Through the use of a position tracking estimation algorithm, onboard accelerometers are numerically integrated and transformed using attitude information to obtain an estimate of position in the inertial frame. Position and velocity estimates are subject to drift due to accelerometer sensor bias and high vibration over time, and so require the integration with GPS information using a Kalman filter to provide highly accurate and reliable inertial tracking estimations. The method implemented here uses the local gravitational field vector. Upon determining the location of the local gravitational field vector relative to two consecutive sensors, the orientation of the device may then be estimated, and the attitude determined. Improved attitude estimates further enhance the inertial position estimates. The device can be powered either by batteries, or by the power source onboard its target platforms. A DB9 port provides the I/O to external systems, and the device is designed to be mounted in a waterproof case for all-weather conditions.

Self-folding miniature elastic electric devices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miyashita, Shuhei; Meeker, Laura; Rus, Daniela; Tolley, Michael T; Wood, Robert J

2014-01-01

Printing functional materials represents a considerable impact on the access to manufacturing technology. In this paper we present a methodology and validation of print-and-self-fold miniature electric devices. Polyvinyl chloride laminated sheets based on metalized polyester film show reliable self-folding processes under a heat application, and it configures 3D electric devices. We exemplify this technique by fabricating fundamental electric devices, namely a resistor, capacitor, and inductor. Namely, we show the development of a self-folded stretchable resistor, variable resistor, capacitive strain sensor, and an actuation mechanism consisting of a folded contractible solenoid coil. Because of their pre-defined kinematic design, these devices feature elasticity, making them suitable as sensors and actuators in flexible circuits. Finally, an RLC circuit obtained from the integration of developed devices is demonstrated, in which the coil based actuator is controlled by reading a capacitive strain sensor. (paper)

Miniaturization of components and systems for space using MEMS-technology

Science.gov (United States)

Grönland, Tor-Arne; Rangsten, Pelle; Nese, Martin; Lang, Martin

2007-06-01

Development of MEMS-based (micro electro mechanical system) components and subsystems for space applications has been pursued by various research groups and organizations around the world for at least two decades. The main driver for developing MEMS-based components for space is the miniaturization that can be achieved. Miniaturization can not only save orders of magnitude in mass and volume of individual components, but it can also allow increased redundancy, and enable novel spacecraft designs and mission scenarios. However, the commercial breakthrough of MEMS has not occurred within the space business as it has within other branches such as the IT/telecom or automotive industries, or as it has in biotech or life science applications. A main explanation to this is the highly conservative attitude to new technology within the space community. This conservatism is in many senses motivated by a very low risk acceptance in the few and costly space projects that actually ends with a space flight. To overcome this threshold there is a strong need for flight opportunities where reasonable risks can be accepted. Currently there are a few flight opportunities allowing extensive use of new technology in space, but one of the exceptions is the PRISMA program. PRISMA is an international (Sweden, Germany, France, Denmark, Norway, Greece) technology demonstration program with focus on rendezvous and formation flying. It is a two satellite LEO mission with a launch scheduled for the first half of 2009. On PRISMA, a number of novel technologies e.g. RF metrology sensor for Darwin, autonomous formation flying based on GPS and vision-based sensors, ADN-based "green propulsion" will be demonstrated in space for the first time. One of the satellites will also have a miniaturized propulsion system onboard based on MEMS-technology. This novel propulsion system includes two microthruster modules, each including four thrusters with micro- to milli-Newton thrust capability. The novelty

Recent progress in distributed optical fiber Raman photon sensors at China Jiliang University

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Zaixuan; Wang, Jianfeng; Li, Yi; Gong, Huaping; Yu, Xiangdong; Liu, Honglin; Jin, Yongxing; Kang, Juan; Li, Chenxia; Zhang, Wensheng; Zhang, Wenping; Niu, Xiaohui; Sun, Zhongzhou; Zhao, Chunliu; Dong, Xinyong; Jin, Shangzhong

2012-06-01

A brief review of recent progress in researches, productions and applications of full distributed fiber Raman photon sensors at China Jiliang University (CJLU) is presented. In order to improve the measurement distance, the accuracy, the space resolution, the ability of multi-parameter measurements, and the intelligence of full distributed fiber sensor systems, a new generation fiber sensor technology based on the optical fiber nonlinear scattering fusion principle is proposed. A series of new generation full distributed fiber sensors are investigated and designed, which consist of new generation ultra-long distance full distributed fiber Raman and Rayleigh scattering photon sensors integrated with a fiber Raman amplifier, auto-correction full distributed fiber Raman photon temperature sensors based on Raman correlation dual sources, full distributed fiber Raman photon temperature sensors based on a pulse coding source, full distributed fiber Raman photon temperature sensors using a fiber Raman wavelength shifter, a new type of Brillouin optical time domain analyzers (BOTDAs) integrated with a fiber Raman amplifier for replacing a fiber Brillouin amplifier, full distributed fiber Raman and Brillouin photon sensors integrated with a fiber Raman amplifier, and full distributed fiber Brillouin photon sensors integrated with a fiber Brillouin frequency shifter. The Internet of things is believed as one of candidates of the next technological revolution, which has driven hundreds of millions of class markets. Sensor networks are important components of the Internet of things. The full distributed optical fiber sensor network (Rayleigh, Raman, and Brillouin scattering) is a 3S (smart materials, smart structure, and smart skill) system, which is easy to construct smart fiber sensor networks. The distributed optical fiber sensor can be embedded in the power grids, railways, bridges, tunnels, roads, constructions, water supply systems, dams, oil and gas pipelines and other

Performance enhancement of electronic sensor through mask-less lithography

KAUST Repository

Nag, Anindya; Zia, Asif I.; Mukhopadhyay, S. C.; Kosel, Jü rgen

2016-01-01

The escalating applications of miniaturized sensors have led the microelectronics industry to stay abreast with the precise micro-fabrication technologies. The following article describes a new technique for the fabrication of miniaturized

Graphene Chemical Sensor

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Develop graphene based miniaturized chemical sensors that will be able to detect gaseous and volatile molecules with high sensitivity, good reproducibility and wide...

High-Sensitivity Low-Noise Miniature Fluxgate Magnetometers Using a Flip Chip Conceptual Design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chih-Cheng Lu

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a novel class of miniature fluxgate magnetometers fabricated on a print circuit board (PCB substrate and electrically connected to each other similar to the current “flip chip” concept in semiconductor package. This sensor is soldered together by reversely flipping a 5 cm × 3 cm PCB substrate to the other identical one which includes dual magnetic cores, planar pick-up coils, and 3-D excitation coils constructed by planar Cu interconnections patterned on PCB substrates. Principles and analysis of the fluxgate sensor are introduced first, and followed by FEA electromagnetic modeling and simulation for the proposed sensor. Comprehensive characteristic experiments of the miniature fluxgate device exhibit favorable results in terms of sensitivity (or “responsivity” for magnetometers and field noise spectrum. The sensor is driven and characterized by employing the improved second-harmonic detection technique that enables linear V-B correlation and responsivity verification. In addition, the double magnitude of responsivity measured under very low frequency (1 Hz magnetic fields is experimentally demonstrated. As a result, the maximum responsivity of 593 V/T occurs at 50 kHz of excitation frequency with the second harmonic wave of excitation; however, the minimum magnetic field noise is found to be 0.05 nT/Hz1/2 at 1 Hz under the same excitation. In comparison with other miniature planar fluxgates published to date, the fluxgate magnetic sensor with flip chip configuration offers advances in both device functionality and fabrication simplicity. More importantly, the novel design can be further extended to a silicon-based micro-fluxgate chip manufactured by emerging CMOS-MEMS technologies, thus enriching its potential range of applications in modern engineering and the consumer electronics market.

High-Sensitivity Low-Noise Miniature Fluxgate Magnetometers Using a Flip Chip Conceptual Design

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Chih-Cheng; Huang, Jeff; Chiu, Po-Kai; Chiu, Shih-Liang; Jeng, Jen-Tzong

2014-01-01

This paper presents a novel class of miniature fluxgate magnetometers fabricated on a print circuit board (PCB) substrate and electrically connected to each other similar to the current “flip chip” concept in semiconductor package. This sensor is soldered together by reversely flipping a 5 cm × 3 cm PCB substrate to the other identical one which includes dual magnetic cores, planar pick-up coils, and 3-D excitation coils constructed by planar Cu interconnections patterned on PCB substrates. Principles and analysis of the fluxgate sensor are introduced first, and followed by FEA electromagnetic modeling and simulation for the proposed sensor. Comprehensive characteristic experiments of the miniature fluxgate device exhibit favorable results in terms of sensitivity (or “responsivity” for magnetometers) and field noise spectrum. The sensor is driven and characterized by employing the improved second-harmonic detection technique that enables linear V-B correlation and responsivity verification. In addition, the double magnitude of responsivity measured under very low frequency (1 Hz) magnetic fields is experimentally demonstrated. As a result, the maximum responsivity of 593 V/T occurs at 50 kHz of excitation frequency with the second harmonic wave of excitation; however, the minimum magnetic field noise is found to be 0.05 nT/Hz1/2 at 1 Hz under the same excitation. In comparison with other miniature planar fluxgates published to date, the fluxgate magnetic sensor with flip chip configuration offers advances in both device functionality and fabrication simplicity. More importantly, the novel design can be further extended to a silicon-based micro-fluxgate chip manufactured by emerging CMOS-MEMS technologies, thus enriching its potential range of applications in modern engineering and the consumer electronics market. PMID:25196107

Advancing Sensor Technology to Monitor Wildfires

Science.gov (United States)

EPA and partners are looking at ways to use miniature sensors to monitor air quality near wildfires. Data from these small sensors can complement measurements obtained from more complex regulatory-grade monitors that are stationary.

A Nodes Deployment Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Network Based on Distribution

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Song Yuli

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Wireless sensor network coverage is a basic problem of wireless sensor network. In this paper, we propose a wireless sensor network node deployment algorithm base on distribution in order to form an efficient wireless sensor network. The iteratively greedy algorithm is used in this paper to choose priority nodes into active until the entire network is covered by wireless sensor nodes, the whole network to multiply connected. The simulation results show that the distributed wireless sensor network node deployment algorithm can form a multiply connected wireless sensor network.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University multispectral sensor and data fusion laboratory: a model for distributed research and education

Science.gov (United States)

McMullen, Sonya A. H.; Henderson, Troy; Ison, David

2017-05-01

The miniaturization of unmanned systems and spacecraft, as well as computing and sensor technologies, has opened new opportunities in the areas of remote sensing and multi-sensor data fusion for a variety of applications. Remote sensing and data fusion historically have been the purview of large government organizations, such as the Department of Defense (DoD), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) due to the high cost and complexity of developing, fielding, and operating such systems. However, miniaturized computers with high capacity processing capabilities, small and affordable sensors, and emerging, commercially available platforms such as UAS and CubeSats to carry such sensors, have allowed for a vast range of novel applications. In order to leverage these developments, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) has developed an advanced sensor and data fusion laboratory to research component capabilities and their employment on a wide-range of autonomous, robotic, and transportation systems. This lab is unique in several ways, for example, it provides a traditional campus laboratory for students and faculty to model and test sensors in a range of scenarios, process multi-sensor data sets (both simulated and experimental), and analyze results. Moreover, such allows for "virtual" modeling, testing, and teaching capability reaching beyond the physical confines of the facility for use among ERAU Worldwide students and faculty located around the globe. Although other institutions such as Georgia Institute of Technology, Lockheed Martin, University of Dayton, and University of Central Florida have optical sensor laboratories, the ERAU virtual concept is the first such lab to expand to multispectral sensors and data fusion, while focusing on the data collection and data products and not on the manufacturing aspect. Further, the initiative is a unique effort among Embry-Riddle faculty to develop multi

Temperature measurement distributed on a building by fiber optic BOTDA sensor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kwon, Il Bum; Kim, Chi Yeop; Choi, Man Yong; Lee, Seung Seok

2002-01-01

We have focused on the development of a fiber optic BOTDA (Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis) sensor system in order to measure temperature distributed on large structures. Also, we present a feasibility study of the fiber optic sensor to monitor the distributed temperature on a building construction. A fiber optic BOTDA sensor system, which has a capability of measuring the temperature distribution, attempted over several kilometers of long fiber paths. This simple fiber optic sensor system employs a laser diode and two electro-optic modulators. The optical fiber of the length of 1400 m was installed on the surfaces of the building. The change of the distributed temperature on the building construction was well measured by this fiber optic sensor. The temperature changed normally up to 4 degrees C through one day.

Optical monitoring of kidney oxygenation and hemodynamics using a miniaturized near-infrared sensor

Science.gov (United States)

Shadgan, Babak; Macnab, Andrew; Nigro, Mark; Nguan, Christopher

2017-02-01

Background: Following human renal allograft transplant primary graft dysfunction can occur early in the postoperative period as a result of acute tubular necrosis, acute rejection, drug toxicity, and vascular complications. Successful treatment of graft dysfunction requires early detection and accurate diagnosis so that disease-specific medical and/or surgical intervention can be provided promptly. However, current diagnostic methods are not sensitive or specific enough, so that identifying the cause of graft dysfunction is problematic and often delayed. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is an established optical method that monitors changes in tissue hemodynamics and oxygenation in real time. We report the feasibility of directly monitoring kidney the kidney in an animal model using NIRS to detect renal ischemia and hypoxia. Methods: In an anesthetized pig, a customized continuous wave spatially resolved (SR) NIRS sensor was fixed directly to the surface of the surgically exposed kidney. Changes in the concentration of oxygenated (O2Hb) deoxygenated (HHb) and total hemoglobin (THb) were monitored before, during and after renal artery clamping and reperfusion, and the resulting fluctuations in chromophore concentration from baseline used to measure variations in renal perfusion and oxygenation. Results: On clamping the renal artery THb and O2Hb concentrations declined progressively while HHb rose. With reperfusion after releasing the artery clamp O2Hb and THb rose while HHb fell with all parameters returning to its baseline. This pattern was similar in all three trials. Conclusion: This pilot study indicates that a miniaturized NIRS sensor applied directly to the surface of a kidney in an animal model can detect the onset of renal ischemia and tissue hypoxia. With modification, our NIRS-based method may contribute to early detection of renal vascular complications and graft dysfunction following renal transplant.

Miniaturized remission sensor for carbon dioxide detection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martan, T; Will, M

2010-01-01

Recently, optical sensors for detection of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) have been explored for variety of applications in chemistry, industry, and medicine. This paper deals with the development of a planar optical remission sensor employing a dye immobilized in a polymer layer designed for gaseous CO 2 detection. The principle of CO 2 detection was based on colour changes of Tetraethylammonium Cresol red immobilized in a special composed polymer layer that was irradiated by LED diodes. Absorption properties of the dye were changed due to its chemical reaction with CO 2 and corresponding colour changes were detected by PIN diodes. These changes were analyzed by using a PC-controlled board connected by USB. The sensitivity, response time, and the detection limit of the remission sensor were characterized.

Steam distribution and energy delivery optimization using wireless sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Olama, Mohammed M.; Allgood, Glenn O.; Kuruganti, Teja P.; Sukumar, Sreenivas R.; Djouadi, Seddik M.; Lake, Joe E.

2011-05-01

The Extreme Measurement Communications Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) explores the deployment of a wireless sensor system with a real-time measurement-based energy efficiency optimization framework in the ORNL campus. With particular focus on the 12-mile long steam distribution network in our campus, we propose an integrated system-level approach to optimize the energy delivery within the steam distribution system. We address the goal of achieving significant energy-saving in steam lines by monitoring and acting on leaking steam valves/traps. Our approach leverages an integrated wireless sensor and real-time monitoring capabilities. We make assessments on the real-time status of the distribution system by mounting acoustic sensors on the steam pipes/traps/valves and observe the state measurements of these sensors. Our assessments are based on analysis of the wireless sensor measurements. We describe Fourier-spectrum based algorithms that interpret acoustic vibration sensor data to characterize flows and classify the steam system status. We are able to present the sensor readings, steam flow, steam trap status and the assessed alerts as an interactive overlay within a web-based Google Earth geographic platform that enables decision makers to take remedial action. We believe our demonstration serves as an instantiation of a platform that extends implementation to include newer modalities to manage water flow, sewage and energy consumption.

Distributed Velocity-Dependent Protocol for Multihop Cellular Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deepthi Chander

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Cell phones are embedded with sensors form a Cellular Sensor Network which can be used to localize a moving event. The inherent mobility of the application and of the cell phone users warrants distributed structure-free data aggregation and on-the-fly routing. We propose a Distributed Velocity-Dependent (DVD protocol to localize a moving event using a Multihop Cellular Sensor Network (MCSN. DVD is based on a novel form of connectivity determined by the waiting time of nodes for a Random Waypoint (RWP distribution of cell phone users. This paper analyzes the time-stationary and spatial distribution of the proposed waiting time to explain the superior event localization and delay performances of DVD over the existing Randomized Waiting (RW protocol. A sensitivity analysis is also performed to compare the performance of DVD with RW and the existing Centralized approach.

Packets distribution in a tree-based topology wireless sensor networks

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Akpakwu, GA

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The concept of data distribution within cluster of sensor nodes to the source sink has resulted to intense research in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). In this paper, in order to determine the scheduling length of packet distribution, a tree...

A Survey on Distributed Filtering and Fault Detection for Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hongli Dong

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In recent years, theoretical and practical research on large-scale networked systems has gained an increasing attention from multiple disciplines including engineering, computer science, and mathematics. Lying in the core part of the area are the distributed estimation and fault detection problems that have recently been attracting growing research interests. In particular, an urgent need has arisen to understand the effects of distributed information structures on filtering and fault detection in sensor networks. In this paper, a bibliographical review is provided on distributed filtering and fault detection problems over sensor networks. The algorithms employed to study the distributed filtering and detection problems are categorised and then discussed. In addition, some recent advances on distributed detection problems for faulty sensors and fault events are also summarized in great detail. Finally, we conclude the paper by outlining future research challenges for distributed filtering and fault detection for sensor networks.

Highly sensitive miniature fluidic flowmeter based on an FBG heated by Co2+-doped fiber

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liu, Z.; Htein, L.; Cheng, L.K.; Martina, Q.; Jansen, R.; Tam, H.Y.

2017-01-01

In this paper, we present a miniature fluidic flow sensor based on a short fiber Bragg grating inscribed in a single mode fiber and heated by Co2+-doped multimode fibers. The proposed flow sensor was employed to measure the flow rates of oil and water, showing good sensitivity of 0.339 nm/(m/s) and

Evaluation of a miniature electromagnetic position tracker

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hummel, Johann; Figl, Michael; Kollmann, Christian; Bergmann, Helmar; Birkfellner, Wolfgang

2002-01-01

The advent of miniaturized electromagnetic digitizers opens a variety of potential clinical applications for computer aided interventions using flexible instruments; endoscopes or catheters can easily be tracked within the body. With respect to the new applications, the systematic distortions induced by various materials such as closed metallic loops, wire guides, catheters, and ultrasound scan heads were systematically evaluated in this paper for a new commercial tracking system. We employed the electromagnetic tracking system Aurora trade mark sign (Mednetix/CH, NDI/Can); data were acquired using the serial port of a PC running SuSE Linux 7.1 (SuSE, Gmbh, Nuernberg). Objects introduced into the digitizer volume included wire loops of different diameters, wire guides, optical tracking tools, an ultrasonic (US) scan head, an endoscope with radial ultrasound scan head and various other objects used in operating rooms and interventional suites. Beyond this, we determined the influence of a C-arm fluoroscopy unit. To quantify the reliability of the system, the miniaturized sensor was mounted on a nonmetallic measurement rack while the transmitter was fixed at three different distances within the digitizer range. The tracker was shown to be more sensitive to distortions caused by materials close to the emitter (average distortion error 13.6 mm±16.6 mm for wire loops positioned at a distance between 100 mm and 200 mm from the emitter). Distortions caused by materials near the sensor (distances smaller than 100 mm) are small (typical error 2.2 mm±1.9 mm). The C-arm fluoroscopy unit caused considerable distortions and limits the reliability of the tracker (distortion error 18.6 mm±24.9 mm). Distortions resulting from the US scan head are high at distances smaller than about 100 mm from the emitter. The distortions also increase when the scan head is positioned horizontally and close to the sensor (average error 4.1 mm±1.5 mm when the scan head is positioned within a

An Intraoral Miniature X-ray Tube Based on Carbon Nanotubes for Dental Radiography

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hyun Jin Kim

2016-06-01

Full Text Available A miniature X-ray tube based on a carbon-nanotube electron emitter has been employed for the application to a dental radiography. The miniature X-ray tube has an outer diameter of 7 mm and a length of 47 mm. The miniature X-ray tube is operated in a negative high-voltage mode in which the X-ray target is electrically grounded. In addition, X-rays are generated only to the teeth directions using a collimator while X-rays generated to other directions are shielded. Hence, the X-ray tube can be safely inserted into a human mouth. Using the intra-oral X-ray tube, a dental radiography is demonstrated where the positions of an X-ray source and a sensor are reversed compared with a conventional dental radiography system. X-ray images of five neighboring teeth are obtained and, furthermore, both left and right molar images are achieved by a single X-ray shot of the miniature X-ray tube.

An intraoral miniature x-ray tube based on carbon nanotubes for dental radiography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Hyun Jin; Kim, Hyun Nam; Raza, Hamid Saeed; Park, Han Beom; Cho, Sung Oh

2016-01-01

A miniature X-ray tube based on a carbon-nanotube electron emitter has been employed for the application to a dental radiography. The miniature X-ray tube has an outer diameter of 7 mm and a length of 47 mm. The miniature X-ray tube is operated in a negative high-voltage mode in which the X-ray target is electrically grounded. In addition, X-rays are generated only to the teeth directions using a collimator while X-rays generated to other directions are shielded. Hence, the X-ray tube can be safely inserted into a human mouth. Using the intra-oral X-ray tube, a dental radiography is demonstrated where the positions of an X-ray source and a sensor are reversed compared with a conventional dental radiography system. X-ray images of five neighboring teeth are obtained and, furthermore, both left and right molar images are achieved by a single X-ray shot of the miniature X-ray tube

An intraoral miniature x-ray tube based on carbon nanotubes for dental radiography

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Hyun Jin; Kim, Hyun Nam; Raza, Hamid Saeed; Park, Han Beom; Cho, Sung Oh [Dept. of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-06-15

A miniature X-ray tube based on a carbon-nanotube electron emitter has been employed for the application to a dental radiography. The miniature X-ray tube has an outer diameter of 7 mm and a length of 47 mm. The miniature X-ray tube is operated in a negative high-voltage mode in which the X-ray target is electrically grounded. In addition, X-rays are generated only to the teeth directions using a collimator while X-rays generated to other directions are shielded. Hence, the X-ray tube can be safely inserted into a human mouth. Using the intra-oral X-ray tube, a dental radiography is demonstrated where the positions of an X-ray source and a sensor are reversed compared with a conventional dental radiography system. X-ray images of five neighboring teeth are obtained and, furthermore, both left and right molar images are achieved by a single X-ray shot of the miniature X-ray tube.

Bayes Node Energy Polynomial Distribution to Improve Routing in Wireless Sensor Network

Science.gov (United States)

Palanisamy, Thirumoorthy; Krishnasamy, Karthikeyan N.

2015-01-01

Wireless Sensor Network monitor and control the physical world via large number of small, low-priced sensor nodes. Existing method on Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) presented sensed data communication through continuous data collection resulting in higher delay and energy consumption. To conquer the routing issue and reduce energy drain rate, Bayes Node Energy and Polynomial Distribution (BNEPD) technique is introduced with energy aware routing in the wireless sensor network. The Bayes Node Energy Distribution initially distributes the sensor nodes that detect an object of similar event (i.e., temperature, pressure, flow) into specific regions with the application of Bayes rule. The object detection of similar events is accomplished based on the bayes probabilities and is sent to the sink node resulting in minimizing the energy consumption. Next, the Polynomial Regression Function is applied to the target object of similar events considered for different sensors are combined. They are based on the minimum and maximum value of object events and are transferred to the sink node. Finally, the Poly Distribute algorithm effectively distributes the sensor nodes. The energy efficient routing path for each sensor nodes are created by data aggregation at the sink based on polynomial regression function which reduces the energy drain rate with minimum communication overhead. Experimental performance is evaluated using Dodgers Loop Sensor Data Set from UCI repository. Simulation results show that the proposed distribution algorithm significantly reduce the node energy drain rate and ensure fairness among different users reducing the communication overhead. PMID:26426701

Bayes Node Energy Polynomial Distribution to Improve Routing in Wireless Sensor Network.

Science.gov (United States)

Palanisamy, Thirumoorthy; Krishnasamy, Karthikeyan N

2015-01-01

Wireless Sensor Network monitor and control the physical world via large number of small, low-priced sensor nodes. Existing method on Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) presented sensed data communication through continuous data collection resulting in higher delay and energy consumption. To conquer the routing issue and reduce energy drain rate, Bayes Node Energy and Polynomial Distribution (BNEPD) technique is introduced with energy aware routing in the wireless sensor network. The Bayes Node Energy Distribution initially distributes the sensor nodes that detect an object of similar event (i.e., temperature, pressure, flow) into specific regions with the application of Bayes rule. The object detection of similar events is accomplished based on the bayes probabilities and is sent to the sink node resulting in minimizing the energy consumption. Next, the Polynomial Regression Function is applied to the target object of similar events considered for different sensors are combined. They are based on the minimum and maximum value of object events and are transferred to the sink node. Finally, the Poly Distribute algorithm effectively distributes the sensor nodes. The energy efficient routing path for each sensor nodes are created by data aggregation at the sink based on polynomial regression function which reduces the energy drain rate with minimum communication overhead. Experimental performance is evaluated using Dodgers Loop Sensor Data Set from UCI repository. Simulation results show that the proposed distribution algorithm significantly reduce the node energy drain rate and ensure fairness among different users reducing the communication overhead.

Graphene Chemical Sensor Project

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Develop graphene based miniaturized chemical sensors that will be able to detect gaseous and volatile molecules with high sensitivity, good reproducibility and wide...

Distributed Velocity-Dependent Protocol for Multihop Cellular Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jagyasi Bhushan

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Cell phones are embedded with sensors form a Cellular Sensor Network which can be used to localize a moving event. The inherent mobility of the application and of the cell phone users warrants distributed structure-free data aggregation and on-the-fly routing. We propose a Distributed Velocity-Dependent (DVD protocol to localize a moving event using a Multihop Cellular Sensor Network (MCSN. DVD is based on a novel form of connectivity determined by the waiting time of nodes for a Random Waypoint (RWP distribution of cell phone users. This paper analyzes the time-stationary and spatial distribution of the proposed waiting time to explain the superior event localization and delay performances of DVD over the existing Randomized Waiting (RW protocol. A sensitivity analysis is also performed to compare the performance of DVD with RW and the existing Centralized approach.

Optical Communication System for Remote Monitoring and Adaptive Control of Distributed Ground Sensors Exhibiting Collective Intelligence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cameron, S.M.; Stantz, K.M.; Trahan, M.W.; Wagner, J.S.

1998-11-01

Comprehensive management of the battle-space has created new requirements in information management, communication, and interoperability as they effect surveillance and situational awareness. The objective of this proposal is to expand intelligent controls theory to produce a uniquely powerful implementation of distributed ground-based measurement incorporating both local collective behavior, and interoperative global optimization for sensor fusion and mission oversight. By using a layered hierarchal control architecture to orchestrate adaptive reconfiguration of autonomous robotic agents, we can improve overall robustness and functionality in dynamic tactical environments without information bottlenecks. In this concept, each sensor is equipped with a miniaturized optical reflectance modulator which is interactively monitored as a remote transponder using a covert laser communication protocol from a remote mothership or operative. Robot data-sharing at the ground level can be leveraged with global evaluation criteria, including terrain overlays and remote imaging data. Information sharing and distributed intelli- gence opens up a new class of remote-sensing applications in which small single-function autono- mous observers at the local level can collectively optimize and measure large scale ground-level signals. AS the need for coverage and the number of agents grows to improve spatial resolution, cooperative behavior orchestrated by a global situational awareness umbrella will be an essential ingredient to offset increasing bandwidth requirements within the net. A system of the type described in this proposal will be capable of sensitively detecting, tracking, and mapping spatial distributions of measurement signatures which are non-stationary or obscured by clutter and inter- fering obstacles by virtue of adaptive reconfiguration. This methodology could be used, for example, to field an adaptive ground-penetrating radar for detection of underground structures in

Miniature Biometric Sensor Project

Science.gov (United States)

Falker, John; Terrier, Douglas; Clayton, Ronald; Hanson, Andrea; Cooper, Tommy; Downs, Meghan; Flint, Stephanie; Reyna, Baraquiel; Simon, Cory; Wilt, Grier

2015-01-01

Heart rate monitoring (HRM) is a critical need during exploration missions. Unlike the four separate systems used on ISS today, the single HRM system should perform as a diagnostic tool, perform well during exercise or high level activity, and be suitable for use during EVA. Currently available HRM technologies are dependent on uninterrupted contact with the skin and are prone to data drop-out and motion artifact when worn in the spacesuit or during exercise. Here, we seek an alternative to the chest strap and electrode based sensors currently in use on ISS today. This project aims to develop a single, high performance, robust biosensor with focused efforts on improved heart rate data quality collection during high intensity activity such as exercise or EVA.

Bayes Node Energy Polynomial Distribution to Improve Routing in Wireless Sensor Network.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thirumoorthy Palanisamy

Full Text Available Wireless Sensor Network monitor and control the physical world via large number of small, low-priced sensor nodes. Existing method on Wireless Sensor Network (WSN presented sensed data communication through continuous data collection resulting in higher delay and energy consumption. To conquer the routing issue and reduce energy drain rate, Bayes Node Energy and Polynomial Distribution (BNEPD technique is introduced with energy aware routing in the wireless sensor network. The Bayes Node Energy Distribution initially distributes the sensor nodes that detect an object of similar event (i.e., temperature, pressure, flow into specific regions with the application of Bayes rule. The object detection of similar events is accomplished based on the bayes probabilities and is sent to the sink node resulting in minimizing the energy consumption. Next, the Polynomial Regression Function is applied to the target object of similar events considered for different sensors are combined. They are based on the minimum and maximum value of object events and are transferred to the sink node. Finally, the Poly Distribute algorithm effectively distributes the sensor nodes. The energy efficient routing path for each sensor nodes are created by data aggregation at the sink based on polynomial regression function which reduces the energy drain rate with minimum communication overhead. Experimental performance is evaluated using Dodgers Loop Sensor Data Set from UCI repository. Simulation results show that the proposed distribution algorithm significantly reduce the node energy drain rate and ensure fairness among different users reducing the communication overhead.

Flight experience with lightweight, low-power miniaturized instrumentation systems

Science.gov (United States)

Hamory, Philip J.; Murray, James E.

1992-01-01

Engineers at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility (NASA-Dryden) have conducted two flight research programs with lightweight, low-power miniaturized instrumentation systems built around commercial data loggers. One program quantified the performance of a radio-controlled model airplane. The other program was a laminar boundary-layer transition experiment on a manned sailplane. The purpose of this paper is to report NASA-Dryden personnel's flight experience with the miniaturized instrumentation systems used on these two programs. The paper will describe the data loggers, the sensors, and the hardware and software developed to complete the systems. The paper also describes how the systems were used and covers the challenges encountered to make them work. Examples of raw data and derived results will be shown as well. Finally, future plans for these systems will be discussed.

Evaluation of Fiber Bragg Grating and Distributed Optical Fiber Temperature Sensors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McCary, Kelly Marie

2017-01-01

Fiber optic temperature sensors were evaluated in the High Temperature Test Lab (HTTL) to determine the accuracy of the measurements at various temperatures. A distributed temperature sensor was evaluated up to 550C and a fiber Bragg grating sensor was evaluated up to 750C. HTTL measurements indicate that there is a drift in fiber Bragg sensor over time of approximately -10C with higher accuracy at temperatures above 300C. The distributed sensor produced some bad data points at and above 500C but produced measurements with less than 2% error at increasing temperatures up to 400C

Evaluation of Fiber Bragg Grating and Distributed Optical Fiber Temperature Sensors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McCary, Kelly Marie [Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)

2017-04-01

Fiber optic temperature sensors were evaluated in the High Temperature Test Lab (HTTL) to determine the accuracy of the measurements at various temperatures. A distributed temperature sensor was evaluated up to 550C and a fiber Bragg grating sensor was evaluated up to 750C. HTTL measurements indicate that there is a drift in fiber Bragg sensor over time of approximately -10C with higher accuracy at temperatures above 300C. The distributed sensor produced some bad data points at and above 500C but produced measurements with less than 2% error at increasing temperatures up to 400C

Distributed Detection with Collisions in a Random, Single-Hop Wireless Sensor Network

Science.gov (United States)

2013-05-26

public release; distribution is unlimited. Distributed detection with collisions in a random, single-hop wireless sensor network The views, opinions...1274 2 ABSTRACT Distributed detection with collisions in a random, single-hop wireless sensor network Report Title We consider the problem of... WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK Gene T. Whipps?† Emre Ertin† Randolph L. Moses† ?U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD 20783 †The Ohio State University

Autonomous distributed self-organization for mobile wireless sensor networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Chih-Yu; Tang, Hung-Kai

2009-01-01

This paper presents an adaptive combined-metrics-based clustering scheme for mobile wireless sensor networks, which manages the mobile sensors by utilizing the hierarchical network structure and allocates network resources efficiently A local criteria is used to help mobile sensors form a new cluster or join a current cluster. The messages transmitted during hierarchical clustering are applied to choose distributed gateways such that communication for adjacent clusters and distributed topology control can be achieved. In order to balance the load among clusters and govern the topology change, a cluster reformation scheme using localized criterions is implemented. The proposed scheme is simulated and analyzed to abstract the network behaviors in a number of settings. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm provides efficient network topology management and achieves high scalability in mobile sensor networks.

Lunar Navigator - A Miniature, Fully Autonomous, Lunar Navigation, Surveyor, and Range Finder System, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Microcosm proposes to design and develop a fully autonomous Lunar Navigator based on our MicroMak miniature star sensor and a gravity gradiometer similar to one on a...

Distributed adaptive diagnosis of sensor faults using structural response data

Science.gov (United States)

Dragos, Kosmas; Smarsly, Kay

2016-10-01

The reliability and consistency of wireless structural health monitoring (SHM) systems can be compromised by sensor faults, leading to miscalibrations, corrupted data, or even data loss. Several research approaches towards fault diagnosis, referred to as ‘analytical redundancy’, have been proposed that analyze the correlations between different sensor outputs. In wireless SHM, most analytical redundancy approaches require centralized data storage on a server for data analysis, while other approaches exploit the on-board computing capabilities of wireless sensor nodes, analyzing the raw sensor data directly on board. However, using raw sensor data poses an operational constraint due to the limited power resources of wireless sensor nodes. In this paper, a new distributed autonomous approach towards sensor fault diagnosis based on processed structural response data is presented. The inherent correlations among Fourier amplitudes of acceleration response data, at peaks corresponding to the eigenfrequencies of the structure, are used for diagnosis of abnormal sensor outputs at a given structural condition. Representing an entirely data-driven analytical redundancy approach that does not require any a priori knowledge of the monitored structure or of the SHM system, artificial neural networks (ANN) are embedded into the sensor nodes enabling cooperative fault diagnosis in a fully decentralized manner. The distributed analytical redundancy approach is implemented into a wireless SHM system and validated in laboratory experiments, demonstrating the ability of wireless sensor nodes to self-diagnose sensor faults accurately and efficiently with minimal data traffic. Besides enabling distributed autonomous fault diagnosis, the embedded ANNs are able to adapt to the actual condition of the structure, thus ensuring accurate and efficient fault diagnosis even in case of structural changes.

Cross-coherent vector sensor processing for spatially distributed glider networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Nichols, Brendan; Sabra, Karim G

2015-09-01

Autonomous underwater gliders fitted with vector sensors can be used as a spatially distributed sensor array to passively locate underwater sources. However, to date, the positional accuracy required for robust array processing (especially coherent processing) is not achievable using dead-reckoning while the gliders remain submerged. To obtain such accuracy, the gliders can be temporarily surfaced to allow for global positioning system contact, but the acoustically active sea surface introduces locally additional sensor noise. This letter demonstrates that cross-coherent array processing, which inherently mitigates the effects of local noise, outperforms traditional incoherent processing source localization methods for this spatially distributed vector sensor network.

Unmanned Vehicle Distributed Sensor Management and Information Exchange Demonstration

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Gottfried, Russell

2004-01-01

... sensors to a remote decision-making node. The goal was to establish connectivity between the two nodes, assess the quality of relayed data transmission from distributed sensors, and determine the viability of the technology for future...

Laboratory test of an APS-based sun sensor prototype

Science.gov (United States)

Rufino, Giancarlo; Perrotta, Alessandro; Grassi, Michele

2017-11-01

This paper deals with design and prototype development of an Active Pixel Sensor - based miniature sun sensor and a laboratory facility for its indoor test and calibration. The miniature sun sensor is described and the laboratory test facility is presented in detail. The major focus of the paper is on tests and calibration of the sensor. Two different calibration functions have been adopted. They are based, respectively, on a geometrical model, which has required least-squares optimisation of system physical parameters estimates, and on neural networks. Calibration results are presented for the above solutions, showing that accuracy in the order of 0.01° has been achieved. Neural calibration functions have attained better performance thanks to their intrinsic auto-adaptive structure.

Autonomous Distributed Self-Organization for Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chih-Yu Wen

2009-11-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an adaptive combined-metrics-based clustering scheme for mobile wireless sensor networks, which manages the mobile sensors by utilizing the hierarchical network structure and allocates network resources efficiently. A local criteria is used to help mobile sensors form a new cluster or join a current cluster. The messages transmitted during hierarchical clustering are applied to choose distributed gateways such that communication for adjacent clusters and distributed topology control can be achieved. In order to balance the load among clusters and govern the topology change, a cluster reformation scheme using localized criterions is implemented. The proposed scheme is simulated and analyzed to abstract the network behaviors in a number of settings. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm provides efficient network topology management and achieves high scalability in mobile sensor networks.

Pure random search for ambient sensor distribution optimisation in a smart home environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Poland, Michael P; Nugent, Chris D; Wang, Hui; Chen, Liming

2011-01-01

Smart homes are living spaces facilitated with technology to allow individuals to remain in their own homes for longer, rather than be institutionalised. Sensors are the fundamental physical layer with any smart home, as the data they generate is used to inform decision support systems, facilitating appropriate actuator actions. Positioning of sensors is therefore a fundamental characteristic of a smart home. Contemporary smart home sensor distribution is aligned to either a) a total coverage approach; b) a human assessment approach. These methods for sensor arrangement are not data driven strategies, are unempirical and frequently irrational. This Study hypothesised that sensor deployment directed by an optimisation method that utilises inhabitants' spatial frequency data as the search space, would produce more optimal sensor distributions vs. the current method of sensor deployment by engineers. Seven human engineers were tasked to create sensor distributions based on perceived utility for 9 deployment scenarios. A Pure Random Search (PRS) algorithm was then tasked to create matched sensor distributions. The PRS method produced superior distributions in 98.4% of test cases (n=64) against human engineer instructed deployments when the engineers had no access to the spatial frequency data, and in 92.0% of test cases (n=64) when engineers had full access to these data. These results thus confirmed the hypothesis.

Distributed sensor management for space situational awareness via a negotiation game

Science.gov (United States)

Jia, Bin; Shen, Dan; Pham, Khanh; Blasch, Erik; Chen, Genshe

2015-05-01

Space situational awareness (SSA) is critical to many space missions serving weather analysis, communications, and navigation. However, the number of sensors used in space situational awareness is limited which hinders collision avoidance prediction, debris assessment, and efficient routing. Hence, it is critical to use such sensor resources efficiently. In addition, it is desired to develop the SSA sensor management algorithm in a distributed manner. In this paper, a distributed sensor management approach using the negotiation game (NG-DSM) is proposed for the SSA. Specifically, the proposed negotiation game is played by each sensor and its neighboring sensors. The bargaining strategies are developed for each sensor based on negotiating for accurately tracking desired targets (e.g., satellite, debris, etc.) . The proposed NG-DSM method is tested in a scenario which includes eight space objects and three different sensor modalities which include a space based optical sensor, a ground radar, or a ground Electro-Optic sensor. The geometric relation between the sensor, the Sun, and the space object is also considered. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed NG-DSM sensor management methods, which facilitates an application of multiple-sensor multiple-target tracking for space situational awareness.

Design and analysis of miniature tri-axial fluxgate magnetometer

Science.gov (United States)

Zhi, Menghui; Tang, Liang; Qiao, Donghai

2017-02-01

The detection technology of weak magnetic field is widely used in Earth resource survey and geomagnetic navigation. Useful magnetic field information can be obtained by processing and analyzing the measurement data from magnetic sensors. A miniature tri-axial fluxgate magnetometer is proposed in this paper. This miniature tri-axial fluxgate magnetometer with ring-core structure has a dynamic range of the Earth’s field ±65,000 nT, resolution of several nT. It has three independent parts placed in three perpendicular planes for measuring three orthogonal magnetic field components, respectively. A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is used to generate stimulation signal, analog-to-digital (A/D) convertor control signal, and feedback digital-to-analog (D/A) control signal. Design and analysis details are given to improve the dynamic range, sensitivity, resolution, and linearity. Our prototype was measured and compared with a commercial standard Magson fluxgate magnetometer as a reference. The results show that our miniature fluxgate magnetometer can follow the Magson’s change trend well. When used as a magnetic compass, our prototype only has ± 0.3∘ deviation compared with standard magnetic compass.

Miniature Integrated-Optic Trace-Gas Sensors for Off-World Science Missions, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — As miniaturized satellite platforms such as CubeSat increase in capability, they will eventually be deployed to other planetary bodies (e.g., JPL INSPIRE). An...

Novel Miniature Spectrometer For Remote Chemical Detection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pipino, Andrew C.R.

2000-01-01

New chemical sensing technologies are critically important for addressing many of EM's priority needs as discussed in detail at http://emsp.em.doe.gov/needs. Many technology needs were addressed by this research. For example, improved detection strategies are needed for non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPL's), such as PCE (Cl2C=CCl2) and TCE (HClC=CCl2), which persist in the environment due their highly stable structures. By developing a miniature, ultra-sensitive, selective, and field-deployable detector for NAPL's, the approximate source location could be determined with minimal investigative expense. Contaminant plumes could also be characterized in detail. The miniature spectrometer developed under Project No.60231 could also permit accurate rate measurements in less time, either in the field or the laboratory, which are critically important in the development, testing, and ultimate utilization of models for describing contaminant transport. The technology could also be used for long-term groundwater monitoring or long-term stewardship in general. Many science needs are also addressed by the Project 60231, since the effort significantly advances the measurement science of chemical detection. Developed under Project No.60231, evanescent wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy (EW-CRDS) is a novel form of CRDS, which is an the emerging optical absorption technique. Several review articles on CRDS, which has been generally applied only to gas-phase diagnostics, have been published1-3. EW-CRDS4-10 forms the basis for a new class of chemical sensors that extends CRDS to other states of matter and leads to a miniaturized version of the concept. EW-CRDS uses miniature solid-state optical resonators that incorporate one or more total internal reflection (TIR) surfaces, which create evanescent waves. The evanescent waves emanate from the TIR surfaces, sampling the surrounding medium. The utility of evanescent waves in chemical analysis forms the basis for the field of attenuated

Energy Efficient Distributed Fault Identification Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Meenakshi Panda

2014-01-01

Full Text Available A distributed fault identification algorithm is proposed here to find both hard and soft faulty sensor nodes present in wireless sensor networks. The algorithm is distributed, self-detectable, and can detect the most common byzantine faults such as stuck at zero, stuck at one, and random data. In the proposed approach, each sensor node gathered the observed data from the neighbors and computed the mean to check whether faulty sensor node is present or not. If a node found the presence of faulty sensor node, then compares observed data with the data of the neighbors and predict probable fault status. The final fault status is determined by diffusing the fault information from the neighbors. The accuracy and completeness of the algorithm are verified with the help of statistical model of the sensors data. The performance is evaluated in terms of detection accuracy, false alarm rate, detection latency and message complexity.

Operation of remote mobile sensors for security of drinking water distribution systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Perelman, By Lina; Ostfeld, Avi

2013-09-01

The deployment of fixed online water quality sensors in water distribution systems has been recognized as one of the key components of contamination warning systems for securing public health. This study proposes to explore how the inclusion of mobile sensors for inline monitoring of various water quality parameters (e.g., residual chlorine, pH) can enhance water distribution system security. Mobile sensors equipped with sampling, sensing, data acquisition, wireless transmission and power generation systems are being designed, fabricated, and tested, and prototypes are expected to be released in the very near future. This study initiates the development of a theoretical framework for modeling mobile sensor movement in water distribution systems and integrating the sensory data collected from stationary and non-stationary sensor nodes to increase system security. The methodology is applied and demonstrated on two benchmark networks. Performance of different sensor network designs are compared for fixed and combined fixed and mobile sensor networks. Results indicate that complementing online sensor networks with inline monitoring can increase detection likelihood and decrease mean time to detection. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Radiation detection and situation management by distributed sensor networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jan, Frigo; Mielke, Angela; Cai, D. Michael

2009-01-01

Detection of radioactive materials in an urban environment usually requires large, portal-monitor-style radiation detectors. However, this may not be a practical solution in many transport scenarios. Alternatively, a distributed sensor network (DSN) could complement portal-style detection of radiological materials through the implementation of arrays of low cost, small heterogeneous sensors with the ability to detect the presence of radioactive materials in a moving vehicle over a specific region. In this paper, we report on the use of a heterogeneous, wireless, distributed sensor network for traffic monitoring in a field demonstration. Through wireless communications, the energy spectra from different radiation detectors are combined to improve the detection confidence. In addition, the DSN exploits other sensor technologies and algorithms to provide additional information about the vehicle, such as its speed, location, class (e.g. car, truck), and license plate number. The sensors are in-situ and data is processed in real-time at each node. Relevant information from each node is sent to a base station computer which is used to assess the movement of radioactive materials

CMOS Image Sensors: Electronic Camera On A Chip

Science.gov (United States)

Fossum, E. R.

1995-01-01

Recent advancements in CMOS image sensor technology are reviewed, including both passive pixel sensors and active pixel sensors. On- chip analog to digital converters and on-chip timing and control circuits permit realization of an electronic camera-on-a-chip. Highly miniaturized imaging systems based on CMOS image sensor technology are emerging as a competitor to charge-coupled devices for low cost uses.

Clementine sensor suite

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ledebuhr, A.G. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)

1994-11-15

LLNL designed and built the suite of six miniaturized light-weight space-qualified sensors utilized in the Clementine mission. A major goal of the Clementine program was to demonstrate technologies originally developed for Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Programs. These sensors were modified to gather data from the moon. This overview presents each of these sensors and some preliminary on-orbit performance estimates. The basic subsystems of these sensors include optical baffles to reject off-axis stray light, light-weight ruggedized optical systems, filter wheel assemblies, radiation tolerant focal plane arrays, radiation hardened control and readout electronics and low mass and power mechanical cryogenic coolers for the infrared sensors. Descriptions of each sensor type are given along with design specifications, photographs and on-orbit data collected.

Non-line-of-sight optical wireless sensor network operating in multiscattering channel

Science.gov (United States)

Kedar, Debbie; Arnon, Shlomi

2006-11-01

Networks of sensors are envisaged to be major participants in future data-gathering systems for civilian and military applications, including medical and environmental monitoring and surveillance, home security, agriculture, and industry. Typically, a very large number of miniature sensing and communicating nodes are distributed ad hoc at the location of interest, where they establish a network and wirelessly communicate sensed data either to one another or to a base station using various network topologies. The optical modality is a potential solution for the links, due to the small and lightweight hardware and low power consumption, as well as other special features. Notably, the backscattering of light by molecules and aerosols in the atmosphere can function as a vehicle of communication in a way similar to the deployment of numerous tiny reflecting mirrors. The scattering of light at solar-blind ultraviolet wavelengths is of particular interest since scattering by atmospheric particles is significant and ambient solar interference is minimal. In this paper we derive a mathematical model of a simple and low-cost non-line-of-sight (NLOS) optical wireless sensor network operating in the solar-blind ultraviolet spectral range. The viability and limitations of the internode link are evaluated and found to facilitate miniature operational sensor networks.

Miniaturized tools and devices for bioanalytical applications: an overview

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chudy, M.; Grabowska, I.; Ciosek, P.

2009-01-01

This article presents an overview of various miniaturized devices and technologies developed by our group. Innovative, fast and cheap procedures for the fabrication of laboratory microsystems based on commercially available materials are reported and compared with well-established microfabricatio...... optic detectors, potentiometric sensors platforms, microreactors and capillary electrophoresis (CE) microchips as well as integrated microsystems e. g. double detection microanalytical systems, devices for studying enzymatic reactions and a microsystem for cell culture and lysis....

Energy-Efficient Capacitance-to-Digital Converters for Smart Sensor Applications

KAUST Repository

Alhoshany, Abdulaziz

2017-01-01

One of the key requirements in the design of wireless sensor nodes and miniature biomedical devices is energy efficiency. For a sensor node, which is a sensor and readout circuit, to survive on limited energy sources such as a battery or harvested

Sensitivity of Miniaturized Photo-elastic Transducer for Small Force Sensing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naceur-Eddine KHELIFA

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The sensitivity of a force sensor based on photo-elastic effect in a monolithic Nd- YAG laser depends strongly on the geometrical shape and dimensions of the laser medium. The theoretical predictions of sensitivity are in good agreement with first results obtained with a plano- concave cylindrical crystal of (4´4 mm and some values reported by other groups. However, for small size of the laser sensor, the developed model predicts sensitivity, about 30 % higher than the values given by available experiments. In this paper, we present experimental results obtained with a force sensor using a miniaturized monolithic cylindrical Nd-YAG laser of dimensions (2´3 mm with suitable optical coatings on its plane end faces. The new result of measurement concerning the sensitivity has allowed us to refine the theoretical model to treat photo-elastic force sensors with small dimensions.

Smart Sensors for Launch Vehicles

Science.gov (United States)

Ray, Sabooj; Mathews, Sheeja; Abraham, Sheena; Pradeep, N.; Vinod, P.

2017-12-01

Smart Sensors bring a paradigm shift in the data acquisition mechanism adopted for launch vehicle telemetry system. The sensors integrate signal conditioners, digitizers and communication systems to give digital output from the measurement location. Multiple sensors communicate with a centralized node over a common digital data bus. An in-built microcontroller gives the sensor embedded intelligence to carry out corrective action for sensor inaccuracies. A smart pressure sensor has been realized and flight-proven to increase the reliability as well as simplicity in integration so as to obtain improved data output. Miniaturization is achieved by innovative packaging. This work discusses the construction, working and flight performance of such a sensor.

Optimal Sensor Networks Scheduling in Identification of Distributed Parameter Systems

CERN Document Server

Patan, Maciej

2012-01-01

Sensor networks have recently come into prominence because they hold the potential to revolutionize a wide spectrum of both civilian and military applications. An ingenious characteristic of sensor networks is the distributed nature of data acquisition. Therefore they seem to be ideally prepared for the task of monitoring processes with spatio-temporal dynamics which constitute one of most general and important classes of systems in modelling of the real-world phenomena. It is clear that careful deployment and activation of sensor nodes are critical for collecting the most valuable information from the observed environment. Optimal Sensor Network Scheduling in Identification of Distributed Parameter Systems discusses the characteristic features of the sensor scheduling problem, analyzes classical and recent approaches, and proposes a wide range of original solutions, especially dedicated for networks with mobile and scanning nodes. Both researchers and practitioners will find the case studies, the proposed al...

Fiber-Optic Chemical Sensors and Fiber-Optic Bio-Sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Pospíšilová, Marie; Kuncová, Gabriela; Trögl, Josef

2015-01-01

This review summarizes principles and current stage of development of fiber-optic chemical sensors (FOCS) and biosensors (FOBS). Fiber optic sensor (FOS) systems use the ability of optical fibers (OF) to guide the light in the spectral range from ultraviolet (UV) (180 nm) up to middle infrared (IR) (10 µm) and modulation of guided light by the parameters of the surrounding environment of the OF core. The introduction of OF in the sensor systems has brought advantages such as measurement in flammable and explosive environments, immunity to electrical noises, miniaturization, geometrical flexibility, measurement of small sample volumes, remote sensing in inaccessible sites or harsh environments and multi-sensing. The review comprises briefly the theory of OF elaborated for sensors, techniques of fabrications and analytical results reached with fiber-optic chemical and biological sensors. PMID:26437407

Fiber-Optic Chemical Sensors and Fiber-Optic Bio-Sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Pospíšilová, Marie; Kuncová, Gabriela; Trögl, Josef

2015-09-30

This review summarizes principles and current stage of development of fiber-optic chemical sensors (FOCS) and biosensors (FOBS). Fiber optic sensor (FOS) systems use the ability of optical fibers (OF) to guide the light in the spectral range from ultraviolet (UV) (180 nm) up to middle infrared (IR) (10 μm) and modulation of guided light by the parameters of the surrounding environment of the OF core. The introduction of OF in the sensor systems has brought advantages such as measurement in flammable and explosive environments, immunity to electrical noises, miniaturization, geometrical flexibility, measurement of small sample volumes, remote sensing in inaccessible sites or harsh environments and multi-sensing. The review comprises briefly the theory of OF elaborated for sensors, techniques of fabrications and analytical results reached with fiber-optic chemical and biological sensors.

Distributed electrochemical sensors: recent advances and barriers to market adoption.

Science.gov (United States)

Hoekstra, Rafael; Blondeau, Pascal; Andrade, Francisco J

2018-07-01

Despite predictions of their widespread application in healthcare and environmental monitoring, electrochemical sensors are yet to be distributed at scale, instead remaining largely confined to R&D labs. This contrasts sharply with the situation for physical sensors, which are now ubiquitous and seamlessly embedded in the mature ecosystem provided by electronics and connectivity protocols. Although chemical sensors could be integrated into the same ecosystem, there are fundamental issues with these sensors in the three key areas of analytical performance, usability, and affordability. Nevertheless, advances are being made in each of these fields, leading to hope that the deployment of automated and user-friendly low-cost electrochemical sensors is on the horizon. Here, we present a brief survey of key challenges and advances in the development of distributed electrochemical sensors for liquid samples, geared towards applications in healthcare and wellbeing, environmental monitoring, and homeland security. As will be seen, in many cases the analytical performance of the sensor is acceptable; it is usability that is the major barrier to commercial viability at this moment. Were this to be overcome, the issue of affordability could be addressed. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.

Performance enhancement of electronic sensor through mask-less lithography

KAUST Repository

Nag, Anindya

2016-03-30

The escalating applications of miniaturized sensors have led the microelectronics industry to stay abreast with the precise micro-fabrication technologies. The following article describes a new technique for the fabrication of miniaturized interdigitated capacitive sensors that own highly sensitive and real-time detections capabilities. In standard lithographic procedure, the sensors are fabricated applying different photoresist materials that give rise to the variable characteristic profile of the fabricated product. Single crystal p-doped Silicon wafer was used as a substrate material due to its advantageous properties over Germanium. Heidelberg system was used for the maskless lithographic patterning of the new interdigital sensors on a silicon substrate. The process was carried out in a clean room in the absence of ultraviolet light at a fixed temperature. The fabricated sensors were used for inflammable gas sensing application. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy was applied to read the resistive and capacitive impedance measured by the sensor. The results proclaimed that the fabricated sensors own better performance in LPG detection as compared to its commercial counterparts.

A miniature electrical capacitance tomograph

Science.gov (United States)

York, T. A.; Phua, T. N.; Reichelt, L.; Pawlowski, A.; Kneer, R.

2006-08-01

The paper describes a miniature electrical capacitance tomography system. This is based on a custom CMOS silicon integrated circuit comprising eight channels of signal conditioning electronics to source drive signals and measure voltages. Electrodes are deposited around a hole that is fabricated, using ultrasonic drilling, through a ceramic substrate and has an average diameter of 0.75 mm. The custom chip is interfaced to a host computer via a bespoke data acquisition system based on a microcontroller, field programmable logic device and wide shift register. This provides fast capture of up to 750 frames of data prior to uploading to the host computer. Data capture rates of about 6000 frames per second have been achieved for the eight-electrode sensor. This rate could be increased but at the expense of signal to noise. Captured data are uploaded to a PC, via a RS232 interface, for off-line imaging. Initial tests are reported for the static case involving 200 µm diameter rods that are placed in the sensor and for the dynamic case using the dose from an inhaler.

Distributed estimation based on observations prediction in wireless sensor networks

KAUST Repository

Bouchoucha, Taha; Ahmed, Mohammed F A; Al-Naffouri, Tareq Y.; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

2015-01-01

We consider wireless sensor networks (WSNs) used for distributed estimation of unknown parameters. Due to the limited bandwidth, sensor nodes quantize their noisy observations before transmission to a fusion center (FC) for the estimation process

Detection of Salmonella enteritidis Using a Miniature Optical Surface Plasmon Resonance Biosensor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Son, J R; Kim, G; Kothapalli, A; Morgan, M T; Ess, D

2007-01-01

The frequent outbreaks of foodborne illness demand rapid detection of foodborne pathogens. Unfortunately, conventional methods for pathogen detection and identification are labor-intensive and take days to complete. Biosensors have shown great potential for the rapid detection of foodborne pathogens. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors have been widely adapted as an analysis tool for the study of various biological binding reactions. SPR biosensors could detect antibody-antigen bindings on the sensor surface by measuring either a resonance angle or refractive index value. In this study, the feasibility of a miniature SPR sensor (Spreeta, TI, USA) for detection of Salmonella enteritidis has been evaluated. Anti-Salmonella antibodies were immobilized on the gold sensor surface by using neutravidin. Salmonella could be detected by the Spreeta biosensor at concentrations down to 10 5 cfu/ml

Distributed estimation based on observations prediction in wireless sensor networks

KAUST Repository

Bouchoucha, Taha

2015-03-19

We consider wireless sensor networks (WSNs) used for distributed estimation of unknown parameters. Due to the limited bandwidth, sensor nodes quantize their noisy observations before transmission to a fusion center (FC) for the estimation process. In this letter, the correlation between observations is exploited to reduce the mean-square error (MSE) of the distributed estimation. Specifically, sensor nodes generate local predictions of their observations and then transmit the quantized prediction errors (innovations) to the FC rather than the quantized observations. The analytic and numerical results show that transmitting the innovations rather than the observations mitigates the effect of quantization noise and hence reduces the MSE. © 2015 IEEE.

Miniature, Low-Power, Waveguide Based Infrared Fourier Transform Spectrometer for Spacecraft Remote Sensing

Science.gov (United States)

Hewagama, TIlak; Aslam, Shahid; Talabac, Stephen; Allen, John E., Jr.; Annen, John N.; Jennings, Donald E.

2011-01-01

Fourier transform spectrometers have a venerable heritage as flight instruments. However, obtaining an accurate spectrum exacts a penalty in instrument mass and power requirements. Recent advances in a broad class of non-scanning Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) devices, generally called spatial heterodyne spectrometers, offer distinct advantages as flight optimized systems. We are developing a miniaturized system that employs photonics lightwave circuit principles and functions as an FTS operating in the 7-14 micrometer spectral region. The inteferogram is constructed from an ensemble of Mach-Zehnder interferometers with path length differences calibrated to mimic scan mirror sample positions of a classic Michelson type FTS. One potential long-term application of this technology in low cost planetary missions is the concept of a self-contained sensor system. We are developing a systems architecture concept for wide area in situ and remote monitoring of characteristic properties that are of scientific interest. The system will be based on wavelength- and resolution-independent spectroscopic sensors for studying atmospheric and surface chemistry, physics, and mineralogy. The self-contained sensor network is based on our concept of an Addressable Photonics Cube (APC) which has real-time flexibility and broad science applications. It is envisaged that a spatially distributed autonomous sensor web concept that integrates multiple APCs will be reactive and dynamically driven. The network is designed to respond in an event- or model-driven manner or reconfigured as needed.

Wireless Distribution and Use of Bio-sensor Data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kyng, Morten; Kristensen, Margit; Christensen, Erika Frischknecht

2007-01-01

consists of small bio-monitors - with sensors and a unique ID - which are placed on the victims. The bio-monitors communicate wirelessly with one or more base-stations, which distribute the signals locally at the incident site and to remote coordination centres and emergency departments. Ongoing...... data you are looking at? And, when an alarm goes off because the bio-sensor data of a patient reaches a critical threshold, how do you find the patient? In order to support medical responders on site and at coordination centres/ emergency departments, we are supplementing the bio-sensor data...

Nature inspired capacitive sensor with unique and unclonable characteristic

Science.gov (United States)

Karuthedath, C. B.; Schwesinger, N.

2018-02-01

Background of this paper is the development of sensors showing a nature like characteristic. The sensor is able to detect excitations on inertia bases and operates capacitive. It consists of a miniaturized interdigitated electrode structure on a printed circuit board, a flexible and conductive membrane of PDMS located in a certain distance above and a certain number of steel balls fixed on top of the membrane. The steel ball distribution is random and the conductivity of the membrane is not homogeneous across the membrane. Due to this double random distribution, no sensor equals the other, although the external geometry is equal. The overall size of the sensor is 4.7mm x 4.7mm x 1.7mm. Tilt, acceleration or magnetic fields are capable of causing forces on the steel balls and therefore relative movements between the membrane and the electrode structures. Due to this movement, capacity changes of the arrangement are measurable. This paper describes besides the fabrication of conductive membranes the preparation of regarding sensors. Process technology makes cloning of the sensors impossible. Although all process steps are suited for mass production, no sensor equals the other. Measurements with these sensors prove that each sensor reacts differently to the same excitation. Calculations of the Intra-Concordance-Coefficient show the similarity of the sensors for equal excitations. On the other hand, the maximum Inter-Concordance-Coefficient reveals the differences of such sensors very clearly. Such a characteristic, i.e. equal reaction to equal excitation and an output of significantly different signals allows considering each sensor as a unique device. The sensors obviously behave like receptors in natural organisms. These unusual properties of uniqueness and impossibility to clone make the sensors very interesting for highly secure identification demands. In combination with a very simple measurement procedure, the sensors are an attractive hardware base for

Distributed data fusion across multiple hard and soft mobile sensor platforms

Science.gov (United States)

Sinsley, Gregory

One of the biggest challenges currently facing the robotics field is sensor data fusion. Unmanned robots carry many sophisticated sensors including visual and infrared cameras, radar, laser range finders, chemical sensors, accelerometers, gyros, and global positioning systems. By effectively fusing the data from these sensors, a robot would be able to form a coherent view of its world that could then be used to facilitate both autonomous and intelligent operation. Another distinct fusion problem is that of fusing data from teammates with data from onboard sensors. If an entire team of vehicles has the same worldview they will be able to cooperate much more effectively. Sharing worldviews is made even more difficult if the teammates have different sensor types. The final fusion challenge the robotics field faces is that of fusing data gathered by robots with data gathered by human teammates (soft sensors). Humans sense the world completely differently from robots, which makes this problem particularly difficult. The advantage of fusing data from humans is that it makes more information available to the entire team, thus helping each agent to make the best possible decisions. This thesis presents a system for fusing data from multiple unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles, and human observers. The first issue this thesis addresses is that of centralized data fusion. This is a foundational data fusion issue, which has been very well studied. Important issues in centralized fusion include data association, classification, tracking, and robotics problems. Because these problems are so well studied, this thesis does not make any major contributions in this area, but does review it for completeness. The chapter on centralized fusion concludes with an example unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance problem that demonstrates many of the traditional fusion methods. The second problem this thesis addresses is that of distributed data fusion. Distributed data fusion

Fiber-Optic Chemical Sensors and Fiber-Optic Bio-Sensors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marie Pospíšilová

2015-09-01

Full Text Available This review summarizes principles and current stage of development of fiber-optic chemical sensors (FOCS and biosensors (FOBS. Fiber optic sensor (FOS systems use the ability of optical fibers (OF to guide the light in the spectral range from ultraviolet (UV (180 nm up to middle infrared (IR (10 μm and modulation of guided light by the parameters of the surrounding environment of the OF core. The introduction of OF in the sensor systems has brought advantages such as measurement in flammable and explosive environments, immunity to electrical noises, miniaturization, geometrical flexibility, measurement of small sample volumes, remote sensing in inaccessible sites or harsh environments and multi-sensing. The review comprises briefly the theory of OF elaborated for sensors, techniques of fabrications and analytical results reached with fiber-optic chemical and biological sensors.

A Parameter Communication Optimization Strategy for Distributed Machine Learning in Sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jilin; Tu, Hangdi; Ren, Yongjian; Wan, Jian; Zhou, Li; Li, Mingwei; Wang, Jue; Yu, Lifeng; Zhao, Chang; Zhang, Lei

2017-09-21

In order to utilize the distributed characteristic of sensors, distributed machine learning has become the mainstream approach, but the different computing capability of sensors and network delays greatly influence the accuracy and the convergence rate of the machine learning model. Our paper describes a reasonable parameter communication optimization strategy to balance the training overhead and the communication overhead. We extend the fault tolerance of iterative-convergent machine learning algorithms and propose the Dynamic Finite Fault Tolerance (DFFT). Based on the DFFT, we implement a parameter communication optimization strategy for distributed machine learning, named Dynamic Synchronous Parallel Strategy (DSP), which uses the performance monitoring model to dynamically adjust the parameter synchronization strategy between worker nodes and the Parameter Server (PS). This strategy makes full use of the computing power of each sensor, ensures the accuracy of the machine learning model, and avoids the situation that the model training is disturbed by any tasks unrelated to the sensors.

A micro-fabricated force sensor using an all thin film piezoelectric active sensor.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Junwoo; Choi, Wook; Yoo, Yong Kyoung; Hwang, Kyo Seon; Lee, Sang-Myung; Kang, Sungchul; Kim, Jinseok; Lee, Jeong Hoon

2014-11-25

The ability to measure pressure and force is essential in biomedical applications such as minimally invasive surgery (MIS) and palpation for detecting cancer cysts. Here, we report a force sensor for measuring a shear and normal force by combining an arrayed piezoelectric sensors layer with a precut glass top plate connected by four stress concentrating legs. We designed and fabricated a thin film piezoelectric force sensor and proposed an enhanced sensing tool to be used for analyzing gentle touches without the external voltage source used in FET sensors. Both the linear sensor response from 3 kPa to 30 kPa and the exact signal responses from the moving direction illustrate the strong feasibility of the described thin film miniaturized piezoelectric force sensor.

A Micro-Fabricated Force Sensor Using an All Thin Film Piezoelectric Active Sensor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Junwoo Lee

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The ability to measure pressure and force is essential in biomedical applications such as minimally invasive surgery (MIS and palpation for detecting cancer cysts. Here, we report a force sensor for measuring a shear and normal force by combining an arrayed piezoelectric sensors layer with a precut glass top plate connected by four stress concentrating legs. We designed and fabricated a thin film piezoelectric force sensor and proposed an enhanced sensing tool to be used for analyzing gentle touches without the external voltage source used in FET sensors. Both the linear sensor response from 3 kPa to 30 kPa and the exact signal responses from the moving direction illustrate the strong feasibility of the described thin film miniaturized piezoelectric force sensor.

Novel lipoprotein density profiling in healthy dogs of various breeds, healthy miniature schnauzers, and miniature schnauzers with hyperlipidemia

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Background Despite the importance of abnormalities in lipoprotein metabolism in clinical canine medicine, the fact that most previously used methods for lipoprotein profiling are rather laborious and time-consuming has been a major obstacle to the wide clinical application and use of lipoprotein profiling in this species. The aim of the present study was to assess the feasibility of a continuous lipoprotein density profile (CLPDP) generated within a bismuth sodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (NaBiEDTA) density gradient to characterize and compare the lipoprotein profiles of healthy dogs of various breeds, healthy Miniature Schnauzers, and Miniature Schnauzers with primary hypertriacylglycerolemia. A total of 35 healthy dogs of various breeds with serum triacylglycerol (TAG) and cholesterol concentrations within their respective reference intervals were selected for use as a reference population. Thirty-one Miniature Schnauzers with serum TAG and cholesterol concentrations within their respective reference intervals and 31 Miniature Schnauzers with hypertriacylglyceridemia were also included in the study. Results The results suggest that CLPDP using NaBiEDTA provides unique diagnostic information in addition to measurements of serum TAG and cholesterol concentrations and that it is a useful screening method for dogs with suspected lipoprotein metabolism disorders. Using the detailed and continuous density distribution information provided by the CLPDP, important differences in lipoprotein profiles can be detected even among dogs that have serum TAG and cholesterol concentrations within the reference interval. Miniature Schnauzers with serum TAG and cholesterol concentrations within the reference interval had significantly different lipoprotein profiles than dogs of various other breeds. In addition, it was further established that specific lipoprotein fractions are associated with hypertriacylglyceridemia in Miniature Schnauzers. Conclusions The results of the

Characteristic evaluation of acoustic emission sensors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jung, Hyun Kyu; Joo, Y. S.; Lee, N. H

2000-12-01

This report introduces the various kinds of Acoustic Emission(AE) sensors as well as the basic principle of AE sensors in order to select AE sensor suitably. The described sensors include : high sensitivity sensor, broadband sensor, underwater sensor, miniature sensor, directional sensor, integral pre-amplifier sensor. Sensor has two critical aspects of reliability and repeatability. For the high reliability, sensor has to be calibrated in accordance with ASTM standard E 1106 which explains to measure the characteristics of AE sensor accurately. For investigating the degradation of AE sensor under the severe environment for example the high radiation condition, It is important to perform the repeatability test which is described in detail in according to the ASTM standard E 976. Two kinds of AE sensor applications are also summarized.

Computational Aspects of Sensor Network Protocols (Distributed Sensor Network Simulator

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vasanth Iyer

2009-08-01

Full Text Available In this work, we model the sensor networks as an unsupervised learning and clustering process. We classify nodes according to its static distribution to form known class densities (CCPD. These densities are chosen from specific cross-layer features which maximizes lifetime of power-aware routing algorithms. To circumvent computational complexities of a power-ware communication STACK we introduce path-loss models at the nodes only for high density deployments. We study the cluster heads and formulate the data handling capacity for an expected deployment and use localized probability models to fuse the data with its side information before transmission. So each cluster head has a unique Pmax but not all cluster heads have the same measured value. In a lossless mode if there are no faults in the sensor network then we can show that the highest probability given by Pmax is ambiguous if its frequency is ≤ n/2 otherwise it can be determined by a local function. We further show that the event detection at the cluster heads can be modelled with a pattern 2m and m, the number of bits can be a correlated pattern of 2 bits and for a tight lower bound we use 3-bit Huffman codes which have entropy < 1. These local algorithms are further studied to optimize on power, fault detection and to maximize on the distributed routing algorithm used at the higher layers. From these bounds in large network, it is observed that the power dissipation is network size invariant. The performance of the routing algorithms solely based on success of finding healthy nodes in a large distribution. It is also observed that if the network size is kept constant and the density of the nodes is kept closer then the local pathloss model effects the performance of the routing algorithms. We also obtain the maximum intensity of transmitting nodes for a given category of routing algorithms for an outage constraint, i.e., the lifetime of sensor network.

Recent Progress in Distributed Fiber Optic Sensors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaoyi Bao

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Rayleigh, Brillouin and Raman scatterings in fibers result from the interaction of photons with local material characteristic features like density, temperature and strain. For example an acoustic/mechanical wave generates a dynamic density variation; such a variation may be affected by local temperature, strain, vibration and birefringence. By detecting changes in the amplitude, frequency and phase of light scattered along a fiber, one can realize a distributed fiber sensor for measuring localized temperature, strain, vibration and birefringence over lengths ranging from meters to one hundred kilometers. Such a measurement can be made in the time domain or frequency domain to resolve location information. With coherent detection of the scattered light one can observe changes in birefringence and beat length for fibers and devices. The progress on state of the art technology for sensing performance, in terms of spatial resolution and limitations on sensing length is reviewed. These distributed sensors can be used for disaster prevention in the civil structural monitoring of pipelines, bridges, dams and railroads. A sensor with centimeter spatial resolution and high precision measurement of temperature, strain, vibration and birefringence can find applications in aerospace smart structures, material processing, and the characterization of optical materials and devices.

Microfabricated Chemical Gas Sensors and Sensor Arrays for Aerospace Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, Gary W.

2005-01-01

Aerospace applications require the development of chemical sensors with capabilities beyond those of commercially available sensors. In particular, factors such as minimal sensor size, weight, and power consumption are particularly important. Development areas which have potential aerospace applications include launch vehicle leak detection, engine health monitoring, and fire detection. Sensor development for these applications is based on progress in three types of technology: 1) Micromachining and microfabrication (Microsystem) technology to fabricate miniaturized sensors; 2) The use of nanocrystalline materials to develop sensors with improved stability combined with higher sensitivity; 3) The development of high temperature semiconductors, especially silicon carbide. This presentation discusses the needs of space applications as well as the point-contact sensor technology and sensor arrays being developed to address these needs. Sensors to measure hydrogen, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides (NO,), carbon monoxide, oxygen, and carbon dioxide are being developed as well as arrays for leak, fire, and emissions detection. Demonstrations of the technology will also be discussed. It is concluded that microfabricated sensor technology has significant potential for use in a range of aerospace applications.

Distortion-Rate Bounds for Distributed Estimation Using Wireless Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nihar Jindal

2008-03-01

Full Text Available We deal with centralized and distributed rate-constrained estimation of random signal vectors performed using a network of wireless sensors (encoders communicating with a fusion center (decoder. For this context, we determine lower and upper bounds on the corresponding distortion-rate (D-R function. The nonachievable lower bound is obtained by considering centralized estimation with a single-sensor which has all observation data available, and by determining the associated D-R function in closed-form. Interestingly, this D-R function can be achieved using an estimate first compress afterwards (EC approach, where the sensor (i forms the minimum mean-square error (MMSE estimate for the signal of interest; and (ii optimally (in the MSE sense compresses and transmits it to the FC that reconstructs it. We further derive a novel alternating scheme to numerically determine an achievable upper bound of the D-R function for general distributed estimation using multiple sensors. The proposed algorithm tackles an analytically intractable minimization problem, while it accounts for sensor data correlations. The obtained upper bound is tighter than the one determined by having each sensor performing MSE optimal encoding independently of the others. Numerical examples indicate that the algorithm performs well and yields D-R upper bounds which are relatively tight with respect to analytical alternatives obtained without taking into account the cross-correlations among sensor data.

Periodic leg movement (PLM) monitoring using a distributed body sensor network.

Science.gov (United States)

Madhushri, Priyanka; Ahmed, Beena; Penzel, Thomas; Jovanov, Emil

2015-01-01

Wireless sensors networks represent the architecture of choice for distributed monitoring due to the ease of deployment and configuration. We developed a distributed sleep monitoring system which combines wireless inertial sensors SP-10C by Sensoplex controlled by a custom smartphone application as an extension of the polysomnographic (PSG) monitor SOMNOscreen plus from Somnomedics. While existing activity monitors are wired to the SOMNOscreen, our system allows the use of wireless inertial sensors to improve user's comfort during sleep. The system is intended for monitoring of periodic leg movements (PLM) and user's activity during sleep. Wireless sensors are placed on ankle and toes of the foot in a customized sock. An Android app communicates with wireless sensors over Bluetooth Smart (BTS) link and streams 3D accelerometer values, 4D unit quaternion values and timestamps. In this paper we present a novel method of synchronization of data streams from PSG and inertial sensors, and original method of detection of PLM events. The system was tested using five experiments of simulated PLM, and achieved 96.51% of PLM detection accuracy.

Micro elements for interrogating magnetoelastic sensors

KAUST Repository

Liang, Cai

2011-11-01

This paper reports a new approach for interrogating a magnetoelastic sensor\\'s resonant frequency. Previously, the frequency of a magnetoelastic sensor was measured by using a large-scale solenoid coil of at least some millimeters both in diameter and length. Planar structures of straight-line and rectangular spiral coil are designed, fabricated and tested to interrogate the resonant frequency of a magnetoelastic sensor. A sensor of 4 mm length is measured to have a resonant frequency of 551 kHz in air. The ability to interrogate a magnetoelastic sensor with such microscale elements is a step towards the miniaturization of a magnetoelastic sensor system and integration of such a system in a microfluidics device. © 2011 IEEE.

Distributed temperature sensors development using an stepped-helical ultrasonic waveguide

Science.gov (United States)

Periyannan, Suresh; Rajagopal, Prabhu; Balasubramaniam, Krishnan

2018-04-01

This paper presents the design and development of the distributed ultrasonic waveguide temperature sensors using some stepped-helical structures. Distributed sensing has several applications in various industries (oil, glass, steel) for measurement of physical parameters such as level, temperature, viscosity, etc. This waveguide incorporates a special notch or bend for obtaining ultrasonic wave reflections from the desired locations (Gage-lengths) where local measurements are desired. In this paper, a multi-location measurement wave-guide, with a measurement capability of 18 locations in a single wire, has been fabricated. The distribution of these sensors is both in the axial as well as radial directions using a stepped-helical spring configuration. Also, different high temperature materials have been chosen for the wave-guide. Both lower order axi-symmetric guided ultrasonic modes (L(0,1) and T(0,1)) were employed. These wave modes were generated/received (pulse-echo approach) using conventional longitudinal and shear transducers, respectively. Also, both the wave modes were simultaneously generated/received and compared using shear transducer for developing the distributed helical wave-guide sensors. The effect of dispersion of the wave modes due to curvature effects will also be discussed.

Robust Distributed Kalman Filter for Wireless Sensor Networks with Uncertain Communication Channels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Du Yong Kim

2012-01-01

Full Text Available We address a state estimation problem over a large-scale sensor network with uncertain communication channel. Consensus protocol is usually used to adapt a large-scale sensor network. However, when certain parts of communication channels are broken down, the accuracy performance is seriously degraded. Specifically, outliers in the channel or temporal disconnection are avoided via proposed method for the practical implementation of the distributed estimation over large-scale sensor networks. We handle this practical challenge by using adaptive channel status estimator and robust L1-norm Kalman filter in design of the processor of the individual sensor node. Then, they are incorporated into the consensus algorithm in order to achieve the robust distributed state estimation. The robust property of the proposed algorithm enables the sensor network to selectively weight sensors of normal conditions so that the filter can be practically useful.

Feature extraction using distribution representation for colorimetric sensor arrays used as explosives detectors

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Alstrøm, Tommy Sonne; Raich, Raviv; Kostesha, Natalie

2012-01-01

is required. We present a new approach of extracting features from a colorimetric sensor array based on a color distribution representation. For each sensor in the array, we construct a K-nearest neighbor classifier based on the Hellinger distances between color distribution of a test compound and the color......We present a colorimetric sensor array which is able to detect explosives such as DNT, TNT, HMX, RDX and TATP and identifying volatile organic compounds in the presence of water vapor in air. To analyze colorimetric sensors with statistical methods, a suitable representation of sensory readings...

A Distributed Tactile Sensor for Intuitive Human-Robot Interfacing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrea Cirillo

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Safety of human-robot physical interaction is enabled not only by suitable robot control strategies but also by suitable sensing technologies. For example, if distributed tactile sensors were available on the robot, they could be used not only to detect unintentional collisions, but also as human-machine interface by enabling a new mode of social interaction with the machine. Starting from their previous works, the authors developed a conformable distributed tactile sensor that can be easily conformed to the different parts of the robot body. Its ability to estimate contact force components and to provide a tactile map with an accurate spatial resolution enables the robot to handle both unintentional collisions in safe human-robot collaboration tasks and intentional touches where the sensor is used as human-machine interface. In this paper, the authors present the characterization of the proposed tactile sensor and they show how it can be also exploited to recognize haptic tactile gestures, by tailoring recognition algorithms, well known in the image processing field, to the case of tactile images. In particular, a set of haptic gestures has been defined to test three recognition algorithms on a group of 20 users. The paper demonstrates how the same sensor originally designed to manage unintentional collisions can be successfully used also as human-machine interface.

Cantilever-like micromechanical sensors

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Boisen, Anja; Dohn, Søren; Keller, Stephan Sylvest

2011-01-01

The field of cantilever-based sensing emerged in the mid-1990s and is today a well-known technology for label-free sensing which holds promise as a technique for cheap, portable, sensitive and highly parallel analysis systems. The research in sensor realization as well as sensor applications has...... increased significantly over the past 10 years. In this review we will present the basic modes of operation in cantilever-like micromechanical sensors and discuss optical and electrical means for signal transduction. The fundamental processes for realizing miniaturized cantilevers are described with focus...... on silicon-and polymer-based technologies. Examples of recent sensor applications are given covering such diverse fields as drug discovery, food diagnostics, material characterizations and explosives detection....

Impedance-Based Miniaturized Biosensor for Ultrasensitive and Fast Prostate-Specific Antigen Detection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ganna Chornokur

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper reports the successful fabrication of an impedance-based miniaturized biosensor and its application for ultrasensitive Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA detection in standard and real human plasma solution, spiked with different PSA concentrations. The sensor was fabricated using photolithographic techniques, while monoclonal antibodies specific to human PSA were used as primary capture antibodies. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS was employed as a detection technique. The sensor exhibited a detection limit of 1 pg/ml for PSA with minimal nonspecific binding (NSB. This detection limit is an order of magnitude lower than commercial PSA ELISA assays available on the market. The sensor can be easily modified into an array for the detection of other biomolecules of interest, enabling accurate, ultrasensitive, and inexpensive point-of-care sensing technologies.

Four energy group neutron flux distribution in the Syrian miniature neutron source reactor using the WIMSD4 and CITATION code

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khattab, K.; Omar, H.; Ghazi, N.

2009-01-01

A 3-D (R, θ , Z) neutronic model for the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR) was developed earlier to conduct the reactor neutronic analysis. The group constants for all the reactor components were generated using the WIMSD4 code. The reactor excess reactivity and the four group neutron flux distributions were calculated using the CITATION code. This model is used in this paper to calculate the point wise four energy group neutron flux distributions in the MNSR versus the radius, angle and reactor axial directions. Good agreement is noticed between the measured and the calculated thermal neutron flux in the inner and the outer irradiation site with relative difference less than 7% and 5% respectively. (author)

Integrating distributed Bayesian inference and reinforcement learning for sensor management

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Grappiolo, C.; Whiteson, S.; Pavlin, G.; Bakker, B.

2009-01-01

This paper introduces a sensor management approach that integrates distributed Bayesian inference (DBI) and reinforcement learning (RL). DBI is implemented using distributed perception networks (DPNs), a multiagent approach to performing efficient inference, while RL is used to automatically

Distributed acoustic fibre optic sensors for condition monitoring of pipelines

Science.gov (United States)

Hussels, Maria-Teresa; Chruscicki, Sebastian; Habib, Abdelkarim; Krebber, Katerina

2016-05-01

Industrial piping systems are particularly relevant to public safety and the continuous availability of infrastructure. However, condition monitoring systems based on many discrete sensors are generally not well-suited for widespread piping systems due to considerable installation effort, while use of distributed fibre-optic sensors would reduce this effort to a minimum. Specifically distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is employed for detection of third-party threats and leaks in oil and gas pipelines in recent years and can in principle also be applied to industrial plants. Further possible detection routes amenable by DAS that could identify damage prior to emission of medium are subject of a current project at BAM, which aims at qualifying distributed fibre optic methods such as DAS as a means for spatially continuous monitoring of industrial piping systems. Here, first tests on a short pipe are presented, where optical fibres were applied directly to the surface. An artificial signal was used to define suitable parameters of the measurement system and compare different ways of applying the sensor.

Distributed sensor and actuator reconfiguration for fault-tolerant networked control systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Herdeiro Teixeira, A.M.; Araujo, Jose; Sandberg, Henrik; Johansson, Karl H.

2017-01-01

In this paper, we address the problem of distributed reconfiguration of networked control systems upon the removal of misbehaving sensors and actuators. In particular, we consider systems with redundant sensors and actuators cooperating to recover from faults. Reconfiguration is performed while

Nanophotonic Image Sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Qin; Hu, Xin; Wen, Long; Yu, Yan; Cumming, David R S

2016-09-01

The increasing miniaturization and resolution of image sensors bring challenges to conventional optical elements such as spectral filters and polarizers, the properties of which are determined mainly by the materials used, including dye polymers. Recent developments in spectral filtering and optical manipulating techniques based on nanophotonics have opened up the possibility of an alternative method to control light spectrally and spatially. By integrating these technologies into image sensors, it will become possible to achieve high compactness, improved process compatibility, robust stability and tunable functionality. In this Review, recent representative achievements on nanophotonic image sensors are presented and analyzed including image sensors with nanophotonic color filters and polarizers, metamaterial-based THz image sensors, filter-free nanowire image sensors and nanostructured-based multispectral image sensors. This novel combination of cutting edge photonics research and well-developed commercial products may not only lead to an important application of nanophotonics but also offer great potential for next generation image sensors beyond Moore's Law expectations. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

The Design and Comparison of Central and Distributed Light Sensored Smart LED Lighting Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehmet Ali Özçelik

2018-01-01

Full Text Available There is a lack of published peer-reviewed research comparing the efficiencies of distributed versus central sensor-controlled LED lighting systems. This research proposes improving the smart illumination of a room with external fenestration using central and distributed light sensors. The optical and electrical measurements of the daylight have been made in the case where the light was not distributed evenly and not sufficient. Test results show that the proposed distributed light sensor illumination system has increased the efficiency by 28% when compared to the proposed central system. It has also been shown that the two tested systems are more cost-effective than common smart illumination systems.

Handbook of sensor networks compact wireless and wired sensing systems

CERN Document Server

Ilyas, Mohammad

2004-01-01

INTRODUCTION Opportunities and Challenges in Wireless Sensor Networks, M. Haenggi, Next Generation Technologies to Enable Sensor Networks, J. I.  Goodman, A. I. Reuther, and D. R. Martinez Sensor Networks Management, L. B. Ruiz, J. M. Nogueira, and A. A. F. Loureiro Models for Programmability in Sensor Networks, A. Boulis Miniaturizing Sensor Networks with MEMS, Brett Warneke A Taxonomy of Routing Techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks, J. N. Al-Karaki and A. E. Kamal Artificial Perceptual Systems, A. Loutfi, M. Lindquist, and P. Wide APPLICATIONS Sensor Network Architecture and Appl

Apodization Optimization of FBG Strain Sensor for Quasi-Distributed Sensing Measurement Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fahd Chaoui

2016-01-01

Full Text Available A novel optimized apodization of Fiber Bragg Grating Sensor (FBGS for quasi-distributed strain sensing applications is developed and introduced in this paper. The main objective of the proposed optimization is to obtain a reflectivity level higher than 90% and a side lobe level around −40 dB, which is suitable for use in quasi-distributed strain sensing application. For this purpose, different design parameters as apodization profile, grating length, and refractive index have been investigated to enhance and optimize the FBGS design. The performance of the proposed apodization has then been compared in terms of reflectivity, side lobe level (SLL, and full width at half maximum (FWHM with apodization profiles proposed by other authors. The optimized sensor is integrated on quasi-distributed sensing system of 8 sensors demonstrating high reliability. Wide strain sensitivity range for each channel has also been achieved in the quasi-distributed system. Results prove the efficiency of the proposed optimization which can be further implemented for any quasi-distributed sensing application.

Electrochemical Sensors for Clinic Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guang Li

2008-03-01

Full Text Available Demanded by modern medical diagnosis, advances in microfabrication technology have led to the development of fast, sensitive and selective electrochemical sensors for clinic analysis. This review addresses the principles behind electrochemical sensor design and fabrication, and introduces recent progress in the application of electrochemical sensors to analysis of clinical chemicals such as blood gases, electrolytes, metabolites, DNA and antibodies, including basic and applied research. Miniaturized commercial electrochemical biosensors will form the basis of inexpensive and easy to use devices for acquiring chemical information to bring sophisticated analytical capabilities to the non-specialist and general public alike in the future.

A Matrix-Based Proactive Data Relay Algorithm for Large Distributed Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Yang; Hu, Xuemei; Hu, Haixiao; Liu, Ming

2016-08-16

In large-scale distributed sensor networks, sensed data is required to be relayed around the network so that one or few sensors can gather adequate relative data to produce high quality information for decision-making. In regards to very high energy-constraint sensor nodes, data transmission should be extremely economical. However, traditional data delivery protocols are potentially inefficient relaying unpredictable sensor readings for data fusion in large distributed networks for either overwhelming query transmissions or unnecessary data coverage. By building sensors' local model from their previously transmitted data in three matrixes, we have developed a novel energy-saving data relay algorithm, which allows sensors to proactively make broadcast decisions by using a neat matrix computation to provide balance between transmission and energy-saving. In addition, we designed a heuristic maintenance algorithm to efficiently update these three matrices. This can easily be deployed to large-scale mobile networks in which decisions of sensors are based on their local matrix models no matter how large the network is, and the local models of these sensors are updated constantly. Compared with some traditional approaches based on our simulations, the efficiency of this approach is manifested in uncertain environment. The results show that our approach is scalable and can effectively balance aggregating data with minimizing energy consumption.

Distributed Database Semantic Integration of Wireless Sensor Network to Access the Environmental Monitoring System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ubaidillah Umar

2018-06-01

Full Text Available A wireless sensor network (WSN works continuously to gather information from sensors that generate large volumes of data to be handled and processed by applications. Current efforts in sensor networks focus more on networking and development services for a variety of applications and less on processing and integrating data from heterogeneous sensors. There is an increased need for information to become shareable across different sensors, database platforms, and applications that are not easily implemented in traditional database systems. To solve the issue of these large amounts of data from different servers and database platforms (including sensor data, a semantic sensor web service platform is needed to enable a machine to extract meaningful information from the sensor’s raw data. This additionally helps to minimize and simplify data processing and to deduce new information from existing data. This paper implements a semantic web data platform (SWDP to manage the distribution of data sensors based on the semantic database system. SWDP uses sensors for temperature, humidity, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, luminosity, and noise. The system uses the Sesame semantic web database for data processing and a WSN to distribute, minimize, and simplify information processing. The sensor nodes are distributed in different places to collect sensor data. The SWDP generates context information in the form of a resource description framework. The experiment results demonstrate that the SWDP is more efficient than the traditional database system in terms of memory usage and processing time.

Miniature horizontal axis wind turbine system for multipurpose application

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xu, F.J.; Yuan, F.G.; Hu, J.Z.; Qiu, Y.P.

2014-01-01

A MWT (miniature wind turbine) has received great attention recently for powering WISP (Wireless Intelligent Sensor Platform). In this study, two MHAWTs (miniature horizontal axis wind turbines) with and without gear transmission were designed and fabricated. A physics-based model was proposed and the optimal load resistances of the MHAWTs were predicted. The open circuit voltages, output powers and net efficiencies were measured under various ambient winds and load resistances. The experimental results showed the optimal load resistances matched well with the predicted results; the MHAWT without gear obtained higher output power at the wind speed of 2 m/s to 6 m/s, while the geared MHAWT exhibited better performance at the wind speed higher than 6 m/s. In addition, a DCM (discontinuous conduction mode) buck-boost converter was adopted as an interface circuit to maximize the charging power from MHAWTs to rechargeable batteries, exhibiting maximum efficiencies above 85%. The charging power reached about 8 mW and 36 mW at the wind speeds of 4 m/s and 6 m/s respectively, which indicated that the MHAWTs were capable for sufficient energy harvesting for powering low-power electronics continuously. - Highlights: • Performance of the miniature wind turbines with and without gears was compared. • The physics-based model was established and proved successfully. • The interface circuit with efficiency of more than 85% was designed

Infrared hyperspectral imaging miniaturized for UAV applications

Science.gov (United States)

Hinnrichs, Michele; Hinnrichs, Bradford; McCutchen, Earl

2017-02-01

Pacific Advanced Technology (PAT) has developed an infrared hyperspectral camera, both MWIR and LWIR, small enough to serve as a payload on a miniature unmanned aerial vehicles. The optical system has been integrated into the cold-shield of the sensor enabling the small size and weight of the sensor. This new and innovative approach to infrared hyperspectral imaging spectrometer uses micro-optics and will be explained in this paper. The micro-optics are made up of an area array of diffractive optical elements where each element is tuned to image a different spectral region on a common focal plane array. The lenslet array is embedded in the cold-shield of the sensor and actuated with a miniature piezo-electric motor. This approach enables rapid infrared spectral imaging with multiple spectral images collected and processed simultaneously each frame of the camera. This paper will present our optical mechanical design approach which results in an infrared hyper-spectral imaging system that is small enough for a payload on a mini-UAV or commercial quadcopter. Also, an example of how this technology can easily be used to quantify a hydrocarbon gas leak's volume and mass flowrates. The diffractive optical elements used in the lenslet array are blazed gratings where each lenslet is tuned for a different spectral bandpass. The lenslets are configured in an area array placed a few millimeters above the focal plane and embedded in the cold-shield to reduce the background signal normally associated with the optics. We have developed various systems using a different number of lenslets in the area array. Depending on the size of the focal plane and the diameter of the lenslet array will determine the spatial resolution. A 2 x 2 lenslet array will image four different spectral images of the scene each frame and when coupled with a 512 x 512 focal plane array will give spatial resolution of 256 x 256 pixel each spectral image. Another system that we developed uses a 4 x 4

Study of n-on-p sensors breakdown in presence of dielectrics placed on top surface

CERN Document Server

Helling, Cole Michael; The ATLAS collaboration

2018-01-01

The ATLAS Upgrade strip module design has readout flex circuits glued directly on top of the sensors’ active area to facilitate the assembly process and minimize the radiation length. The process requires radiation-hard adhesives compatible with the sensor technology. We report on the studies of the breakdown behavior with miniature versions of the prototype sensors, where candidate adhesives were placed in several locations on top of the sensor, including the strip area, guard ring region, and sensor edge. Thermal cycling tends to attenuate the observed cases of breakdown with glue on top of the guard ring. Glue reaching the sensor edge results in low breakdown voltage if it also covers AC- or DC- pads or bias ring openings. Glue placement on top of guard ring region was performed on a large-format sensor, with generally similar results to the miniature sensor tests, except for a large glue deposition, which resulted in a permanent reduction of the breakdown voltage. Post-irradiation measurements were perf...

The Whole new world of miniature technology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gillespie, L.K.

1980-07-01

In the past ten years, miniaturization of both electrical and mechanical parts has significantly increased. Documentation of the design and production capabilities of miniaturization in the electronics industry is well-defined. Literature on the subject of miniaturization of metal piece parts, however, is hard to find. Some of the current capabilities in the manufacture of miniature metal piece parts or miniature features in larger piece parts are discussed.

Multiple Distributed Smart Microgrids with a Self-Autonomous, Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Network

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Guerrero, Josep M.; Kheng Tan, Yen

2012-01-01

The chapter covers the smart wireless sensors for microgrids, as well as the energy harvesting technology used to sustain the operations of these sensors. Last, a case study on the multiple distributed smart microgrids with a self-autonomous, energy harvesting wireless sensor network is presented....

Optimal and Miniaturized Strongly Coupled Magnetic Resonant Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Hao

Wireless power transfer (WPT) technologies for communication and recharging devices have recently attracted significant research attention. Conventional WPT systems based either on far-field or near-field coupling cannot provide simultaneously high efficiency and long transfer range. The Strongly Coupled Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) method was introduced recently, and it offers the possibility of transferring power with high efficiency over longer distances. Previous SCMR research has only focused on how to improve its efficiency and range through different methods. However, the study of optimal and miniaturized designs has been limited. In addition, no multiband and broadband SCMR WPT systems have been developed and traditional SCMR systems exhibit narrowband efficiency thereby imposing strict limitations on simultaneous wireless transmission of information and power, which is important for battery-less sensors. Therefore, new SCMR systems that are optimally designed and miniaturized in size will significantly enhance various technologies in many applications. The optimal and miniaturized SCMR systems are studied here. First, analytical models of the Conformal SCMR (CSCMR) system and thorough analysis and design methodology have been presented. This analysis specifically leads to the identification of the optimal design parameters, and predicts the performance of the designed CSCMR system. Second, optimal multiband and broadband CSCMR systems are designed. Two-band, three-band, and four-band CSCMR systems are designed and validated using simulations and measurements. Novel broadband CSCMR systems are also analyzed, designed, simulated and measured. The proposed broadband CSCMR system achieved more than 7 times larger bandwidth compared to the traditional SCMR system at the same frequency. Miniaturization methods of SCMR systems are also explored. Specifically, methods that use printable CSCMR with large capacitors, novel topologies including meandered, SRRs, and

Low Cost, Vacuum Packaging of GN&C Sensors, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Micro-electro-mechanical System (MEMS)-based gyroscopes, accelerometers and rate sensors are essential to miniaturizing the guidance, navigation and control...

Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detection on a magnetoresistive sensor

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rizzi, Giovanni; Østerberg, Frederik Westergaard; Dufva, Martin

2013-01-01

We present a magnetoresistive sensor platform for hybridization assays and demonstrate its applicability on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping. The sensor relies on anisotropic magnetoresistance in a new geometry with a local negative reference and uses the magnetic field from...... the sensor bias current to magnetize magnetic beads in the vicinity of the sensor. The method allows for real-time measurements of the specific bead binding to the sensor surface during DNA hybridization and washing. Compared to other magnetic biosensing platforms, our approach eliminates the need...... for external electromagnets and thus allows for miniaturization of the sensor platform....

Reconfigurable intelligent sensors for health monitoring: a case study of pulse oximeter sensor.

Science.gov (United States)

Jovanov, E; Milenkovic, A; Basham, S; Clark, D; Kelley, D

2004-01-01

Design of low-cost, miniature, lightweight, ultra low-power, intelligent sensors capable of customization and seamless integration into a body area network for health monitoring applications presents one of the most challenging tasks for system designers. To answer this challenge we propose a reconfigurable intelligent sensor platform featuring a low-power microcontroller, a low-power programmable logic device, a communication interface, and a signal conditioning circuit. The proposed solution promises a cost-effective, flexible platform that allows easy customization, run-time reconfiguration, and energy-efficient computation and communication. The development of a common platform for multiple physical sensors and a repository of both software procedures and soft intellectual property cores for hardware acceleration will increase reuse and alleviate costs of transition to a new generation of sensors. As a case study, we present an implementation of a reconfigurable pulse oximeter sensor.

Position Reconstruction and Charge Distribution in LHCb VELO Silicon Sensors

CERN Document Server

Versloot, TW; Akiba, K; Artuso, M; Van Beuzekom, M; Borel, J; Bowcock, TJV; Buytaert, J; Collins, P; Dumps, R; Dwyer, L; Eckstein, D; Eklund, L; Ferro-Luzzi, M; Frei, R; Gersabek M; Haefeli, G; Hennessy, K; Huse, T; Jans, E; John, M; Ketel, TJ; Keune, A; Lastoviicka, T; Mountain, R; Neufeld, N; Parkes, C; Stone, S; Szumlak, T; Tobin, M; Van Lysebetten, A; Viret, S; De Vries, H; Wang, J

2007-01-01

In 2006, a partially equipped LHCb VELO detector half was characterised in a test beam experiment (Alignment Challenge and Detector Commissioning, ACDC3). The position reconstruction and resolution for 2-strip R-sensor clusters was studied as a function of strip pitch and track inclination on the sensor surface. The Charge Density Distribution (CDD) is derived from the weighted charge distribution. It becomes asymmetric for tracks non-perpendicular to the strip surface. It is shown that the asymmetric broadening of the CDD around the track intercept position results in a linear eta-function at higher angles (>6 degrees). The sensor spatial resolution is determined both using a linear weighted mean of strip charges, as well as a third-order polynomial approximation via a eta-correction. The experimental results are in agreement with previous simulations. Future studies are underway to determine the angle and pitch dependent parameters which will be implemented in the LHCb VELO cluster position software tools.

A Research on Low Modulus Distributed Fiber Optical Sensor for Pavement Material Strain Monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Meng, Lingjian; Wang, Linbing; Hou, Yue; Yan, Guannan

2017-10-19

The accumulated irreversible deformation in pavement under repeated vehicle loadings will cause fatigue failure of asphalt concrete. It is necessary to monitor the mechanical response of pavement under load by using sensors. Previous studies have limitations in modulus accommodation between the sensor and asphalt pavement, and it is difficult to achieve the distributed monitoring goal. To solve these problems, a new type of low modulus distributed optical fiber sensor (DOFS) for asphalt pavement strain monitoring is fabricated. Laboratory experiments have proved the applicability and accuracy of the newly-designed sensor. This paper presents the results of the development.

Miniaturized pH Sensors Based on Zinc Oxide Nanotubes/Nanorods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Magnus Willander

2009-11-01

Full Text Available ZnO nanotubes and nanorods grown on gold thin film were used to create pH sensor devices. The developed ZnO nanotube and nanorod pH sensors display good reproducibility, repeatability and long-term stability and exhibit a pH-dependent electrochemical potential difference versus an Ag/AgCl reference electrode over a large dynamic pH range. We found the ZnO nanotubes provide sensitivity as high as twice that of the ZnO nanorods, which can be ascribed to the fact that small dimensional ZnO nanotubes have a higher level of surface and subsurface oxygen vacancies and provide a larger effective surface area with higher surface-to-volume ratio as compared to ZnO nanorods, thus affording the ZnO nanotube pH sensor a higher sensitivity. Experimental results indicate ZnO nanotubes can be used in pH sensor applications with improved performance. Moreover, the ZnO nanotube arrays may find potential application as a novel material for measurements of intracellular biochemical species within single living cells.

Flexible Temperature Sensors on Fibers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcin Sloma

2010-08-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to present research dedicated to the elaboration of novel, miniaturized flexible temperature sensors for textronic applications. Examined sensors were manufactured on a single yarn, which ensures their high flexibility and good compatibility with textiles. Stable and linear characteristics were obtained by special technological process and applied temperature profiles. As a thermo-sensitive materials the innovative polymer compositions filled with multiwalled carbon nanotubes were used. Elaborated material was adapted to printing and dip-coating techniques to produce NTC composites. Nanotube sensors were free from tensometric effect typical for other carbon-polymer sensor, and demonstrated TCR of 0.13%/K. Obtained temperature sensors, compatible with textile structure, can be applied in rapidly developing smart textiles and be used for health and protections purposes.

Impact of sensor detection limits on protecting water distribution systems from contamination events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McKenna, Sean Andrew; Hart, David Blaine; Yarrington, Lane

2006-01-01

Real-time water quality sensors are becoming commonplace in water distribution systems. However, field deployable, contaminant-specific sensors are still in the development stage. As development proceeds, the necessary operating parameters of these sensors must be determined to protect consumers from accidental and malevolent contamination events. This objective can be quantified in several different ways including minimization of: the time necessary to detect a contamination event, the population exposed to contaminated water, the extent of the contamination within the network, and others. We examine the ability of a sensor set to meet these objectives as a function of both the detection limit of the sensors and the number of sensors in the network. A moderately sized distribution network is used as an example and different sized sets of randomly placed sensors are considered. For each combination of a certain number of sensors and a detection limit, the mean values of the different objectives across multiple random sensor placements are calculated. The tradeoff between the necessary detection limit in a sensor and the number of sensors is evaluated. Results show that for the example problem examined here, a sensor detection limit of 0.01 of the average source concentration is adequate for maximum protection. Detection of events is dependent on the detection limit of the sensors, but for those events that are detected, the values of the performance measures are not a function of the sensor detection limit. The results of replacing a single sensor in a network with a sensor having a much lower detection limit show that while this replacement can improve results, the majority of the additional events detected had performance measures of relatively low consequence.

Development of laboratory and process sensors to monitor particle size distribution of industrial slurries

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pendse, H.P.

1992-10-01

In this paper we present a novel measurement technique for monitoring particle size distributions of industrial colloidal slurries based on ultrasonic spectroscopy and mathematical deconvolution. An on-line sensor prototype has been developed and tested extensively in laboratory and production settings using mineral pigment slurries. Evaluation to date shows that the sensor is capable of providing particle size distributions, without any assumptions regarding their functional form, over diameters ranging from 0.1 to 100 micrometers in slurries with particle concentrations of 10 to 50 volume percents. The newly developed on-line sensor allows one to obtain particle size distributions of commonly encountered inorganic pigment slurries under industrial processing conditions without dilution.

Miniature robust five-dimensional fingertip force/torque sensor with high performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liang, Qiaokang; Huang, Xiuxiang; Li, Zhongyang; Zhang, Dan; Ge, Yunjian

2011-01-01

This paper proposes an innovative design and investigation for a five-dimensional fingertip force/torque sensor with a dual annular diaphragm. This sensor can be applied to a robot hand to measure forces along the X-, Y- and Z-axes (F x , F y and F z ) and moments about the X- and Y-axes (M x and M y ) simultaneously. Particularly, the details of the sensing principle, the structural design and the overload protection mechanism are presented. Afterward, based on the design of experiments approach provided by the software ANSYS®, a finite element analysis and an optimization design are performed. These are performed with the objective of achieving both high sensitivity and stiffness of the sensor. Furthermore, static and dynamic calibrations based on the neural network method are carried out. Finally, an application of the developed sensor on a dexterous robot hand is demonstrated. The results of calibration experiments and the application show that the developed sensor possesses high performance and robustness

Miniature Optical Isolator, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — To address NASA's need for miniature optical isolators in atom interferometry applications, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a miniature optical...

Distributed Input and State Estimation Using Local Information in Heterogeneous Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dzung Tran

2017-07-01

Full Text Available A new distributed input and state estimation architecture is introduced and analyzed for heterogeneous sensor networks. Specifically, nodes of a given sensor network are allowed to have heterogeneous information roles in the sense that a subset of nodes can be active (that is, subject to observations of a process of interest and the rest can be passive (that is, subject to no observation. Both fixed and varying active and passive roles of sensor nodes in the network are investigated. In addition, these nodes are allowed to have non-identical sensor modalities under the common underlying assumption that they have complimentary properties distributed over the sensor network to achieve collective observability. The key feature of our framework is that it utilizes local information not only during the execution of the proposed distributed input and state estimation architecture but also in its design in that global uniform ultimate boundedness of error dynamics is guaranteed once each node satisfies given local stability conditions independent from the graph topology and neighboring information of these nodes. As a special case (e.g., when all nodes are active and a positive real condition is satisfied, the asymptotic stability can be achieved with our algorithm. Several illustrative numerical examples are further provided to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed architecture.

Micromachined High-Temperature Sensors for Planet Exploration, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — In phase I of the SBIR program, LEEOAT Company will develop, simulate, fabricate and test high-temperature piezoelectric miniature sensors (up to 800oC), for...

A multifunctional PVDF-based tactile sensor for minimally invasive surgery

Science.gov (United States)

Sokhanvar, S.; Packirisamy, M.; Dargahi, J.

2007-08-01

In this paper a multifunctional tactile sensor system using PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride), is proposed, designed, analyzed, tested and validated. The working principle of the sensor is in such a way that it can be used in combination with almost any end-effectors. However, the sensor is particularly designed to be integrated with minimally invasive surgery (MIS) tools. In addition, the structural and transduction materials are selected to be compatible with micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology, so that miniaturization would be possible. The corrugated shape of the sensor ensures the safe tissue grasping and compatibility with the traditional tooth-like end effectors of MIS tools. A unit of this sensor comprised of a base, a flexible beam and three PVDF sensing elements. Two PVDF sensing elements sandwiched at the end supports work in thickness mode to measure the magnitude and position of applied load. The third PVDF sensing element is attached to the beam and it works in the extensional mode to measure the softness of the contact object. The proposed sensor is modeled both analytically and numerically and a series of simulations are performed in order to estimate the characteristics of the sensor in measuring the magnitude and position of a point load, distributed load, and also the softness of the contact object. Furthermore, in order to validate the theoretical results, the prototyped sensor was tested and the results are compared. The results are very promising and proving the capability of the sensor for haptic sensing.

Distributed optical fiber sensors for integrated monitoring of railway infrastructures

Science.gov (United States)

Minardo, Aldo; Coscetta, Agnese; Porcaro, Giuseppe; Giannetta, Daniele; Bernini, Romeo; Zeni, Luigi

2014-05-01

We propose the application of a distributed optical fiber sensor based on stimulated Brillouin scattering, as an integrated system for safety monitoring of railway infrastructures. The strain distribution was measured dynamically along a 60 meters length of rail track, as well as along a 3-m stone arch bridge. The results indicate that distributed sensing technology is able to provide useful information in railway traffic and safety monitoring.

An automated miniature robotic vehicle inspection system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dobie, Gordon; Summan, Rahul; MacLeod, Charles; Pierce, Gareth; Galbraith, Walter [Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering, University of Strathclyde, 204 George Street, Glasgow, G1 1XW (United Kingdom)

2014-02-18

A novel, autonomous reconfigurable robotic inspection system for quantitative NDE mapping is presented. The system consists of a fleet of wireless (802.11g) miniature robotic vehicles, each approximately 175 × 125 × 85 mm with magnetic wheels that enable them to inspect industrial structures such as storage tanks, chimneys and large diameter pipe work. The robots carry one of a number of payloads including a two channel MFL sensor, a 5 MHz dry coupled UT thickness wheel probe and a machine vision camera that images the surface. The system creates an NDE map of the structure overlaying results onto a 3D model in real time. The authors provide an overview of the robot design, data fusion algorithms (positioning and NDE) and visualization software.

An automated miniature robotic vehicle inspection system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dobie, Gordon; Summan, Rahul; MacLeod, Charles; Pierce, Gareth; Galbraith, Walter

2014-01-01

A novel, autonomous reconfigurable robotic inspection system for quantitative NDE mapping is presented. The system consists of a fleet of wireless (802.11g) miniature robotic vehicles, each approximately 175 × 125 × 85 mm with magnetic wheels that enable them to inspect industrial structures such as storage tanks, chimneys and large diameter pipe work. The robots carry one of a number of payloads including a two channel MFL sensor, a 5 MHz dry coupled UT thickness wheel probe and a machine vision camera that images the surface. The system creates an NDE map of the structure overlaying results onto a 3D model in real time. The authors provide an overview of the robot design, data fusion algorithms (positioning and NDE) and visualization software

Dr.Johnson's Dictionary in Miniature

OpenAIRE

Imazato, Chiaki

1988-01-01

More than hundred 'Johnson's' dictionaries have so far been published not only in English but in other countries, and there are numerous books and articles on Johnson's Dictionary. But few have referred to Johnson's Dictionary in Miniature; nor were there any books or articles on it. Fortunately, however, I've got one copy of Johnson's Dictionary in Miniature, which was published in 1806. Johnson's Dictionary (1755) has 41,677 entries, whereas Johnson's Dictionary in Miniature 23,439 entr...

Miniaturized membrane sensors for potentiometric determination of metoprolol tartrate and hydrochlorothiazide.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramadan, Nesrin K; Mohamed, Heba M; Mostafa, Azza A

2012-06-01

Four microsized graphite and platinum wire poly(vinyl chloride) matrix membrane electrodes responsive to some drugs affecting cardiovascular system, Metoprolol tartrate (MT) and Hydrochlorothiazide (HZ) were developed, described and characterized. These sensors were constructed by using (2-Hydroxypropyl)-β-cyclodextrin (2HP β-CD) as an ionophore which has a significant influence on increasing both membrane sensitivity and selectivity. The four sensors were fabricated in a polymeric matrix of carboxylated polyvinyl chloride (PVC-COOH) and dioctylphthalate (DOP) as a plasticizer, based on the interaction between the drugs and the dissociated COOH groups in the PVC-COOH. Fast and stable Nernstian responses of 1.0 × 10-6-1.0 × 10-2 M for MT (sensors 1 and 2) and of 1.0 × 10-7-1.0 × 10-3 M for HZ (sensors 3 and 4) over pH range 3.0-9.0 and 3.0-7.0 for the MT and HZ sensors respectively were obtained. Nernstian slopes of 56.2, 54.6, 19.0 and 20.8 mV/decade for electrodes 1-4 respectively were observed. The proposed method displayed useful analytical characteristics for the determination of MT and HZ in their pure powder forms with average recoveries of 99.11 ± 0.357, 99.21 ± 0.389, 100.08 ± 0.459 and 100.28 ± 0.438% for sensors 1-4 respectively. The lower limit of detection (LOD) were 5.5 × 10-6, 4.5 × 10-6, 4.8 × 10-8 and 5.0 × 10-8 M for sensors 1-4 respectively indicated high sensitivity. The four sensors displayed a good stability over a period of 6 weeks. The selectivity coefficients of the developed sensors indicated excellent selectivity. Results obtained by the four electrodes revealed the performance characteristics of these electrodes which evaluated according to IUPAC recommendations. The method was successively applied for the determination of MT and HZ in presence of each other, in presence of Salamide (SA), the main degradation product of HZ, in their pharmaceutical formulations and in human plasma samples. Statistical comparison between the

Magnetic nanocomposite sensor

KAUST Repository

Alfadhel, Ahmed

2016-05-06

A magnetic nanocomposite device is described herein for a wide range of sensing applications. The device utilizes the permanent magnetic behavior of the nanowires to allow operation without the application of an additional magnetic field to magnetize the nanowires, which simplifies miniaturization and integration into microsystems. In5 addition, the nanocomposite benefits from the high elasticity and easy patterning of the polymer-based material, leading to a corrosion-resistant, flexible material that can be used to realize extreme sensitivity. In combination with magnetic sensor elements patterned underneath the nanocomposite, the nanocomposite device realizes highly sensitive and power efficient flexible artificial cilia sensors for flow measurement or tactile sensing.

A Matrix-Based Proactive Data Relay Algorithm for Large Distributed Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yang Xu

2016-08-01

Full Text Available In large-scale distributed sensor networks, sensed data is required to be relayed around the network so that one or few sensors can gather adequate relative data to produce high quality information for decision-making. In regards to very high energy-constraint sensor nodes, data transmission should be extremely economical. However, traditional data delivery protocols are potentially inefficient relaying unpredictable sensor readings for data fusion in large distributed networks for either overwhelming query transmissions or unnecessary data coverage. By building sensors’ local model from their previously transmitted data in three matrixes, we have developed a novel energy-saving data relay algorithm, which allows sensors to proactively make broadcast decisions by using a neat matrix computation to provide balance between transmission and energy-saving. In addition, we designed a heuristic maintenance algorithm to efficiently update these three matrices. This can easily be deployed to large-scale mobile networks in which decisions of sensors are based on their local matrix models no matter how large the network is, and the local models of these sensors are updated constantly. Compared with some traditional approaches based on our simulations, the efficiency of this approach is manifested in uncertain environment. The results show that our approach is scalable and can effectively balance aggregating data with minimizing energy consumption.

Electrochemical Carbon Dioxide Sensor for Plant Production Environments, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The aim of this proposal is to develop a low power consuming solid polymer electrolyte based, miniaturized electrochemical CO2 sensor that can continuously,...

Electrochemical Carbon Dioxide Sensor for Plant Production Environments, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The aim of this proposal is to develop a low power consuming solid polymer electrolyte based, miniaturized electrochemical CO2 sensor that can continuously,...

Microfabricated Chemical Sensors for Safety and Emission Control Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, G. W.; Neudeck, P. G.; Chen, L.-Y.; Knight, D.; Liu, C. C.; Wu, Q. H.

1998-01-01

Chemical sensor technology is being developed for leak detection, emission monitoring, and fire safety applications. The development of these sensors is based on progress in two types of technology: 1) Micromachining and microfabrication (MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS)-based) technology to fabricate miniaturized sensors. 2) The development of high temperature semiconductors, especially silicon carbide. Using these technologies, sensors to measure hydrogen, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, oxygen, and carbon dioxide are being developed. A description is given of each sensor type and its present stage of development. It is concluded that microfabricated sensor technology has significant potential for use in a range of aerospace applications.

Geographically distributed environmental sensor system

Science.gov (United States)

French, Patrick; Veatch, Brad; O'Connor, Mike

2006-10-03

The present invention is directed to a sensor network that includes a number of sensor units and a base unit. The base station operates in a network discovery mode (in which network topology information is collected) in a data polling mode (in which sensed information is collected from selected sensory units). Each of the sensor units can include a number of features, including an anemometer, a rain gauge, a compass, a GPS receiver, a barometric pressure sensor, an air temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, a level, and a radiant temperature sensor.

In-Space Distributed Fiber Optic Hydrogen Leak Sensor, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Broadband Photonics Inc. proposes development of a patent-pending distributed fiber optic sensor for in-space hydrogen leak detection. Reliable and fast detection of...

Mutual trust method for forwarding information in wireless sensor networks using random secret pre-distribution

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chih-Hsueh Lin

2016-04-01

Full Text Available In wireless sensor networks, sensing information must be transmitted from sensor nodes to the base station by multiple hopping. Every sensor node is a sender and a relay node that forwards the sensing information that is sent by other nodes. Under an attack, the sensing information may be intercepted, modified, interrupted, or fabricated during transmission. Accordingly, the development of mutual trust to enable a secure path to be established for forwarding information is an important issue. Random key pre-distribution has been proposed to establish mutual trust among sensor nodes. This article modifies the random key pre-distribution to a random secret pre-distribution and incorporates identity-based cryptography to establish an effective method of establishing mutual trust for a wireless sensor network. In the proposed method, base station assigns an identity and embeds n secrets into the private secret keys for every sensor node. Based on the identity and private secret keys, the mutual trust method is utilized to explore the types of trust among neighboring sensor nodes. The novel method can resist malicious attacks and satisfy the requirements of wireless sensor network, which are resistance to compromising attacks, masquerading attacks, forger attacks, replying attacks, authentication of forwarding messages, and security of sensing information.

Miniature fibre optic probe for minimally invasive photoacoustic sensing

Science.gov (United States)

Mathews, Sunish J.; Zhang, Edward Z.; Desjardins, Adrien E.; Beard, Paul C.

2016-03-01

A miniature (175 μm) all-optical photoacoustic probe has been developed for minimally invasive sensing and imaging applications. The probe comprises a single optical fibre which delivers the excitation light and a broadband 50 MHz Fabry-Pérot (F-P) ultrasound sensor at the distal end for detecting the photoacoustic waves. A graded index lens proximal to the F-P sensor is used to reduce beam walk-off and thus increase sensitivity as well as confine the excitation beam in order to increase lateral spatial resolution. The probe was evaluated in non-scattering media and found to provide lateral and axial resolutions of < 100 μm and < 150 μm respectively for distances up to 1 cm from the tip of the probe. The ability of the probe to detect a blood vessel mimicking phantom at distances up to 7 mm from the tip was demonstrated in order to illustrate its potential suitability for needle guidance applications.

A Multiobjective Fuzzy Inference System based Deployment Strategy for a Distributed Mobile Sensor Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amol P. Bhondekar

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Sensor deployment scheme highly governs the effectiveness of distributed wireless sensor network. Issues such as energy conservation and clustering make the deployment problem much more complex. A multiobjective Fuzzy Inference System based strategy for mobile sensor deployment is presented in this paper. This strategy gives a synergistic combination of energy capacity, clustering and peer-to-peer deployment. Performance of our strategy is evaluated in terms of coverage, uniformity, speed and clustering. Our algorithm is compared against a modified distributed self-spreading algorithm to exhibit better performance.

A Review of Distributed Optical Fiber Sensors for Civil Engineering Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Barrias, António; Casas, Joan R.; Villalba, Sergi

2016-01-01

The application of structural health monitoring (SHM) systems to civil engineering structures has been a developing studied and practiced topic, that has allowed for a better understanding of structures’ conditions and increasingly lead to a more cost-effective management of those infrastructures. In this field, the use of fiber optic sensors has been studied, discussed and practiced with encouraging results. The possibility of understanding and monitor the distributed behavior of extensive stretches of critical structures it’s an enormous advantage that distributed fiber optic sensing provides to SHM systems. In the past decade, several R & D studies have been performed with the goal of improving the knowledge and developing new techniques associated with the application of distributed optical fiber sensors (DOFS) in order to widen the range of applications of these sensors and also to obtain more correct and reliable data. This paper presents, after a brief introduction to the theoretical background of DOFS, the latest developments related with the improvement of these products by presenting a wide range of laboratory experiments as well as an extended review of their diverse applications in civil engineering structures. PMID:27223289

A Review of Distributed Optical Fiber Sensors for Civil Engineering Applications.

Science.gov (United States)

Barrias, António; Casas, Joan R; Villalba, Sergi

2016-05-23

The application of structural health monitoring (SHM) systems to civil engineering structures has been a developing studied and practiced topic, that has allowed for a better understanding of structures' conditions and increasingly lead to a more cost-effective management of those infrastructures. In this field, the use of fiber optic sensors has been studied, discussed and practiced with encouraging results. The possibility of understanding and monitor the distributed behavior of extensive stretches of critical structures it's an enormous advantage that distributed fiber optic sensing provides to SHM systems. In the past decade, several R & D studies have been performed with the goal of improving the knowledge and developing new techniques associated with the application of distributed optical fiber sensors (DOFS) in order to widen the range of applications of these sensors and also to obtain more correct and reliable data. This paper presents, after a brief introduction to the theoretical background of DOFS, the latest developments related with the improvement of these products by presenting a wide range of laboratory experiments as well as an extended review of their diverse applications in civil engineering structures.

A Review of Distributed Optical Fiber Sensors for Civil Engineering Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

António Barrias

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The application of structural health monitoring (SHM systems to civil engineering structures has been a developing studied and practiced topic, that has allowed for a better understanding of structures’ conditions and increasingly lead to a more cost-effective management of those infrastructures. In this field, the use of fiber optic sensors has been studied, discussed and practiced with encouraging results. The possibility of understanding and monitor the distributed behavior of extensive stretches of critical structures it’s an enormous advantage that distributed fiber optic sensing provides to SHM systems. In the past decade, several R & D studies have been performed with the goal of improving the knowledge and developing new techniques associated with the application of distributed optical fiber sensors (DOFS in order to widen the range of applications of these sensors and also to obtain more correct and reliable data. This paper presents, after a brief introduction to the theoretical background of DOFS, the latest developments related with the improvement of these products by presenting a wide range of laboratory experiments as well as an extended review of their diverse applications in civil engineering structures.

Miniaturized digital fluxgate magnetometer for small spacecraft applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Forslund, Åke; Ivchenko, Nickolay; Olsson, Göran; Edberg, Terry; Belyayev, Serhiy; Marusenkov, Andriy

2008-01-01

A novel design of an Earth field digital fluxgate magnetometer is presented, the small magnetometer in low-mass experiment (SMILE). The combination of a number of new techniques results in significant miniaturization of both sensor and electronics. The design uses a sensor with volume compensation, combining three dual rod cores in a Macor® cube with the side dimension of 20 mm. Use of volume compensation provides high geometrical stability of the axes and improved performance compared to component compensated sensors. The sensor is operated at an excitation frequency of 8 kHz. Most of the instrument functionality is combined in a digital signal processing core, implemented in a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The pick-up signal is digitized after amplification and filtering, and values of compensation currents for each of the axes are determined by a digital correlation algorithm, equivalent to a matched filter, and are fed to a hybrid pulse-width modulation/delta-sigma digital-to-analogue converter driving the currents through the compensation coils. Using digital design makes the instrument very flexible, reduces power consumption and opens possibilities for the customization of the operation modes. The current implementation of the design is based on commercial off-the-shelf components. A calibration of the SMILE instrument was carried out at the Nurmijärvi Geophysical Observatory, showing high linearity (within 6 nT on the whole ±50 µT scale), good orthogonality (22 arcmin) and very good temperature stability of the axes

Three dimensional multi perspective imaging with randomly distributed sensors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

DaneshPanah, Mehdi; Javidi, Bahrain

2008-01-01

In this paper, we review a three dimensional (3D) passive imaging system that exploits the visual information captured from the scene from multiple perspectives to reconstruct the scene voxel by voxel in 3D space. The primary contribution of this work is to provide a computational reconstruction scheme based on randomly distributed sensor locations in space. In virtually all of multi perspective techniques (e.g. integral imaging, synthetic aperture integral imaging, etc), there is an implicit assumption that the sensors lie on a simple, regular pickup grid. Here, we relax this assumption and suggest a computational reconstruction framework that unifies the available methods as its special cases. The importance of this work is that it enables three dimensional imaging technology to be implemented in a multitude of novel application domains such as 3D aerial imaging, collaborative imaging, long range 3D imaging and etc, where sustaining a regular pickup grid is not possible and/or the parallax requirements call for a irregular or sparse synthetic aperture mode. Although the sensors can be distributed in any random arrangement, we assume that the pickup position is measured at the time of capture of each elemental image. We demonstrate the feasibility of the methods proposed here by experimental results.

Optical fiber biocompatible sensors for monitoring selective treatment of tumors via thermal ablation

Science.gov (United States)

Tosi, Daniele; Poeggel, Sven; Dinesh, Duraibabu B.; Macchi, Edoardo G.; Gallati, Mario; Braschi, Giovanni; Leen, Gabriel; Lewis, Elfed

2015-09-01

Thermal ablation (TA) is an interventional procedure for selective treatment of tumors, that results in low-invasive outpatient care. The lack of real-time control of TA is one of its main weaknesses. Miniature and biocompatible optical fiber sensors are applied to achieve a dense, multi-parameter monitoring, that can substantially improve the control of TA. Ex vivo measurements are reported performed on porcine liver tissue, to reproduce radiofrequency ablation of hepatocellular carcinoma. Our measurement campaign has a two-fold focus: (1) dual pressure-temperature measurement with a single probe; (2) distributed thermal measurement to estimate point-by-point cells mortality.

Embedded NMR Sensor to Monitor Compressive Strength Development and Pore Size Distribution in Hydrating Concrete

Science.gov (United States)

Díaz-Díaz, Floriberto; de J. Cano-Barrita, Prisciliano F.; Balcom, Bruce J.; Solís-Nájera, Sergio E.; Rodríguez, Alfredo O.

2013-01-01

In cement-based materials porosity plays an important role in determining their mechanical and transport properties. This paper describes an improved low–cost embeddable miniature NMR sensor capable of non-destructively measuring evaporable water loss and porosity refinement in low and high water-to-cement ratio cement-based materials. The sensor consists of two NdFeB magnets having their North and South poles facing each other, separated by 7 mm to allow space for a Faraday cage containing a Teflon tube and an ellipsoidal RF coil. To account for magnetic field changes due to temperature variations, and/or the presence of steel rebars, or frequency variation due to sample impedance, an external tuning circuit was employed. The sensor performance was evaluated by analyzing the transverse magnetization decay obtained with a CPMG measurement from different materials, such as a polymer phantom, fresh white and grey cement pastes with different w/c ratios and concrete with low (0.30) and high (0.6) w/c ratios. The results indicated that the sensor is capable of detecting changes in water content in fresh cement pastes and porosity refinement caused by cement hydration in hardened materials, even if they are prepared with a low w/c ratio (w/c = 0.30). The short lifetime component of the transverse relaxation rate is directly proportional to the compressive strength of concrete determined by destructive testing. The r2 (0.97) from the linear relationship observed is similar to that obtained using T2 data from a commercial Oxford Instruments 12.9 MHz spectrometer.

Embedded NMR Sensor to Monitor Compressive Strength Development and Pore Size Distribution in Hydrating Concrete

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Floriberto Díaz-Díaz

2013-11-01

Full Text Available In cement-based materials porosity plays an important role in determining their mechanical and transport properties. This paper describes an improved low–cost embeddable miniature NMR sensor capable of non-destructively measuring evaporable water loss and porosity refinement in low and high water-to-cement ratio cement-based materials. The sensor consists of two NdFeB magnets having their North and South poles facing each other, separated by 7 mm to allow space for a Faraday cage containing a Teflon tube and an ellipsoidal RF coil. To account for magnetic field changes due to temperature variations, and/or the presence of steel rebars, or frequency variation due to sample impedance, an external tuning circuit was employed. The sensor performance was evaluated by analyzing the transverse magnetization decay obtained with a CPMG measurement from different materials, such as a polymer phantom, fresh white and grey cement pastes with different w/c ratios and concrete with low (0.30 and high (0.6 w/c ratios. The results indicated that the sensor is capable of detecting changes in water content in fresh cement pastes and porosity refinement caused by cement hydration in hardened materials, even if they are prepared with a low w/c ratio (w/c = 0.30. The short lifetime component of the transverse relaxation rate is directly proportional to the compressive strength of concrete determined by destructive testing. The r2 (0.97 from the linear relationship observed is similar to that obtained using T2 data from a commercial Oxford Instruments 12.9 MHz spectrometer.

Integration of piezo-capacitive and piezo-electric nanoweb based pressure sensors for imaging of static and dynamic pressure distribution.

Science.gov (United States)

Jeong, Y J; Oh, T I; Woo, E J; Kim, K J

2017-07-01

Recently, highly flexible and soft pressure distribution imaging sensor is in great demand for tactile sensing, gait analysis, ubiquitous life-care based on activity recognition, and therapeutics. In this study, we integrate the piezo-capacitive and piezo-electric nanowebs with the conductive fabric sheets for detecting static and dynamic pressure distributions on a large sensing area. Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) and electric source imaging are applied for reconstructing pressure distribution images from measured current-voltage data on the boundary of the hybrid fabric sensor. We evaluated the piezo-capacitive nanoweb sensor, piezo-electric nanoweb sensor, and hybrid fabric sensor. The results show the feasibility of static and dynamic pressure distribution imaging from the boundary measurements of the fabric sensors.

Damage detection on mesosurfaces using distributed sensor network and spectral diffusion maps

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chinde, V; Vaidya, U; Laflamme, S; Cao, L

2016-01-01

In this work, we develop a data-driven method for the diagnosis of damage in mesoscale mechanical structures using an array of distributed sensor networks. The proposed approach relies on comparing intrinsic geometries of data sets corresponding to the undamaged and damaged states of the system. We use a spectral diffusion map approach to identify the intrinsic geometry of the data set. In particular, time series data from distributed sensors is used for the construction of diffusion maps. The low dimensional embedding of the data set corresponding to different damage levels is obtained using a singular value decomposition of the diffusion map. We construct appropriate metrics in the diffusion space to compare the different data sets corresponding to different damage cases. The developed algorithm is applied for damage diagnosis of wind turbine blades. To achieve this goal, we developed a detailed finite element-based model of CX-100 blade in ANSYS using shell elements. Typical damage, such as crack or delamination, will lead to a loss of stiffness, is modeled by altering the stiffness of the laminate layer. One of the main challenges in the development of health monitoring algorithms is the ability to use sensor data with a relatively small signal-to-noise ratio. Our developed diffusion map-based algorithm is shown to be robust to the presence of sensor noise. The proposed diffusion map-based algorithm is advantageous by enabling the comparison of data from numerous sensors of similar or different types of data through data fusion, hereby making it attractive to exploit the distributed nature of sensor arrays. This distributed nature is further exploited for the purpose of damage localization. We perform extensive numerical simulations to demonstrate that the proposed method can successfully determine the extent of damage on the wind turbine blade and also localize the damage. We also present preliminary results for the application of the developed algorithm on

Nanoparticle separation with a miniaturized asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation cartridge

Science.gov (United States)

Müller, David; Cattaneo, Stefano; Meier, Florian; Welz, Roland; deMello, Andrew

2015-07-01

Asymmetrical Flow Field-Flow Fractionation (AF4) is a separation technique applicable to particles over a wide size range. Despite the many advantages of AF4, its adoption in routine particle analysis is somewhat limited by the large footprint of currently available separation cartridges, extended analysis times and significant solvent consumption. To address these issues, we describe the fabrication and characterization of miniaturized AF4 cartridges. Key features of the scale-down platform include simplified cartridge and reagent handling, reduced analysis costs and higher throughput capacities. The separation performance of the miniaturized cartridge is assessed using certified gold and silver nanoparticle standards. Analysis of gold nanoparticle populations indicates shorter analysis times and increased sensitivity compared to conventional AF4 separation schemes. Moreover, nanoparticulate titanium dioxide populations exhibiting broad size distributions are analyzed in a rapid and efficient manner. Finally, the repeatability and reproducibility of the miniaturized platform are investigated with respect to analysis time and separation efficiency.

The miniature accelerator

CERN Multimedia

Antonella Del Rosso

2015-01-01

The image that most people have of CERN is of its enormous accelerators and their capacity to accelerate particles to extremely high energies. But thanks to some cutting-edge studies on beam dynamics and radiofrequency technology, along with innovative construction techniques, teams at CERN have now created the first module of a brand-new accelerator, which will be just 2 metres long. The potential uses of this miniature accelerator will include deployment in hospitals for the production of medical isotopes and the treatment of cancer. It’s a real David-and-Goliath story.   Serge Mathot, in charge of the construction of the "mini-RFQ", pictured with the first of the four modules that will make up the miniature accelerator. The miniature accelerator consists of a radiofrequency quadrupole (RFQ), a component found at the start of all proton accelerator chains around the world, from the smallest to the largest. The LHC is designed to produce very high-intensity beams ...

Miniature Compressive Ultra-spectral Imaging System Utilizing a Single Liquid Crystal Phase Retarder

Science.gov (United States)

August, Isaac; Oiknine, Yaniv; Abuleil, Marwan; Abdulhalim, Ibrahim; Stern, Adrian

2016-03-01

Spectroscopic imaging has been proved to be an effective tool for many applications in a variety of fields, such as biology, medicine, agriculture, remote sensing and industrial process inspection. However, due to the demand for high spectral and spatial resolution it became extremely challenging to design and implement such systems in a miniaturized and cost effective manner. Using a Compressive Sensing (CS) setup based on a single variable Liquid Crystal (LC) retarder and a sensor array, we present an innovative Miniature Ultra-Spectral Imaging (MUSI) system. The LC retarder acts as a compact wide band spectral modulator. Within the framework of CS, a sequence of spectrally modulated images is used to recover ultra-spectral image cubes. Using the presented compressive MUSI system, we demonstrate the reconstruction of gigapixel spatio-spectral image cubes from spectral scanning shots numbering an order of magnitude less than would be required using conventional systems.

Low cost self-made pressure distribution sensors for ergonomic chair: Are they suitable for posture monitoring?

Science.gov (United States)

Martinaitis, Arnas; Daunoraviciene, Kristina

2018-05-18

Long sitting causes many health problems for people. Healthy sitting monitoring systems, like real-time pressure distribution measuring, is in high demand and many methods of posture recognition were developed. Such systems are usually expensive and hardly available for the regular user. The aim of study is to develop low cost but sensitive enough pressure sensors and posture monitoring system. New self-made pressure sensors have been developed and tested, and prototype of pressure distribution measuring system was designed. Sensors measured at average noise amplitude of a = 56 mV (1.12%), average variation in sequential measurements of the same sensor s = 17 mV (0.34%). Signal variability between sensors averaged at 100 mV (2.0%). Weight to signal dependency graph was measured and hysteresis calculated. Results suggested the use of total sixteen sensors for posture monitoring system with accuracy of sensor sensitivity and repeatability are acceptable for posture monitoring, and it is possible to build low cost pressure distribution measurement system with graphical visualization without expensive equipment or complicated software.

Strange Animals and Creatures in Islamic Miniatures: Focusing on Miniatures of the Conference of the Birds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Neda Rohani

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Strange animals and creatures have always existed in every mythological culture. In Iran's pre-Islamic and post-Islamic miniatures and reliefs, there are many strange animals and creatures such as dragons and phoenix which were associated with the Iranian culture and civilization. Because of presence of these strange creatures, particularly human life, these creatures are first used in mythological life and then symbolically to express human ideas. However, these animals were present in both mythology and epics and, later in the Islamic era, in the mystical stories, educational stories and admonishing anecdotes like Sanai, Attar, and Rumi. This study tends to investigate genealogy of strange animals and creatures in ancient Iranian reliefs and their continued presence in miniatures of Islamic era as well as presence of these creatures in miniatures which are based on Attar’s Conference of the Birds. In fact, this study reviews elements and symbolic concepts of animals, allowing a deeper understanding of function of elements and symbolism in works of Iranian miniaturists. Contemplation of miniatures, icons and the relationship between literature and miniatures will lead to many results in recognition of mystical intellectual foundations. Therefore, this study tends to investigate mysterious and unknown aspects of Iranian miniatures and find their relationship with culture and stories.

Visual thread quality for precision miniature mechanisms

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gillespie, L.K.

1981-04-01

Threaded features have eight visual appearance factors which can affect their function in precision miniature mechanisms. The Bendix practice in deburring, finishing, and accepting these conditions on miniature threads is described as is their impact in assemblies of precision miniature electromechanical assemblies.

Block Least Mean Squares Algorithm over Distributed Wireless Sensor Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Panigrahi

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In a distributed parameter estimation problem, during each sampling instant, a typical sensor node communicates its estimate either by the diffusion algorithm or by the incremental algorithm. Both these conventional distributed algorithms involve significant communication overheads and, consequently, defeat the basic purpose of wireless sensor networks. In the present paper, we therefore propose two new distributed algorithms, namely, block diffusion least mean square (BDLMS and block incremental least mean square (BILMS by extending the concept of block adaptive filtering techniques to the distributed adaptation scenario. The performance analysis of the proposed BDLMS and BILMS algorithms has been carried out and found to have similar performances to those offered by conventional diffusion LMS and incremental LMS algorithms, respectively. The convergence analyses of the proposed algorithms obtained from the simulation study are also found to be in agreement with the theoretical analysis. The remarkable and interesting aspect of the proposed block-based algorithms is that their communication overheads per node and latencies are less than those of the conventional algorithms by a factor as high as the block size used in the algorithms.

SiPM arrays and miniaturized readout electronics for compact gamma camera

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dinu, N., E-mail: dinu@lal.in2p3.fr [Laboratory of Linear Accelerator, IN2P3, CNRS, Orsay (France); Imando, T. Ait; Nagai, A. [Laboratory of Linear Accelerator, IN2P3, CNRS, Orsay (France); Pinot, L. [Laboratory of Imaging and Modelisation in Neurobiology and Cancerology, IN2P3, CNRS, Orsay (France); Puill, V. [Laboratory of Linear Accelerator, IN2P3, CNRS, Orsay (France); Callier, S. [Omega Microelectronics Group, CNRS, Palaiseau (France); Janvier, B.; Esnault, C.; Verdier, M.-A. [Laboratory of Imaging and Modelisation in Neurobiology and Cancerology, IN2P3, CNRS, Orsay (France); Raux, L. [Omega Microelectronics Group, CNRS, Palaiseau (France); Vandenbussche, V.; Charon, Y.; Menard, L. [Laboratory of Imaging and Modelisation in Neurobiology and Cancerology, IN2P3, CNRS, Orsay (France)

2015-07-01

This article reports on the design and features of a very compact and light gamma camera based on SiPM arrays and miniaturized readout electronics dedicated to tumor localization during radio-guided cancer surgery. This gamma camera, called MAGICS, is composed of four (2×2) photo-detection elementary modules coupled to an inorganic scintillator. The 256 channels photo-detection system covers a sensitive area of 54×53 m{sup 2}. Each elementary module is based on four (2×2) SiPM monolithic arrays, each array consisting of 16 SiPM photo-sensors (4×4) with 3×3 mm{sup 2} sensitive area, coupled to a miniaturized readout electronics and a dedicated ASIC. The overall dimensions of the electronics fit the size of the detector, enabling to assemble side-by-side several elementary modules in a close-packed arrangement. The preliminary performances of the system are very encouraging, showing an energy resolution of 9.8% and a spatial resolution of less than 1 mm at 122 keV.

Advances in Miniaturized Instruments for Genomics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cihun-Siyong Alex Gong

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In recent years, a lot of demonstrations of the miniaturized instruments were reported for genomic applications. They provided the advantages of miniaturization, automation, sensitivity, and specificity for the development of point-of-care diagnostics. The aim of this paper is to report on recent developments on miniaturized instruments for genomic applications. Based on the mature development of microfabrication, microfluidic systems have been demonstrated for various genomic detections. Since one of the objectives of miniaturized instruments is for the development of point-of-care device, impedimetric detection is found to be a promising technique for this purpose. An in-depth discussion of the impedimetric circuits and systems will be included to provide total consideration of the miniaturized instruments and their potential application towards real-time portable imaging in the “-omics” era. The current excellent demonstrations suggest a solid foundation for the development of practical and widespread point-of-care genomic diagnostic devices.

Optimal allocation of sensors for state estimation of distributed parameter systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sunahara, Yoshifumi; Ohsumi, Akira; Mogami, Yoshio.

1978-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to present a method for finding the optimal allocation of sensors for state estimation of linear distributed parameter systems. This method is based on the criterion that the error covariance associated with the state estimate becomes minimal with respect to the allocation of the sensors. A theorem is established, giving the sufficient condition for optimizing the allocation of sensors to make minimal the error covariance approximated by a modal expansion. The remainder of this paper is devoted to illustrate important phases of the general theory of the optimal measurement allocation problem. To do this, several examples are demonstrated, including extensive discussions on the mutual relation between the optimal allocation and the dynamics of sensors. (author)

Wireless Power Transfer for Distributed Estimation in Sensor Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Mai, Vien V.; Shin, Won-Yong; Ishibashi, Koji

2017-04-01

This paper studies power allocation for distributed estimation of an unknown scalar random source in sensor networks with a multiple-antenna fusion center (FC), where wireless sensors are equipped with radio-frequency based energy harvesting technology. The sensors' observation is locally processed by using an uncoded amplify-and-forward scheme. The processed signals are then sent to the FC, and are coherently combined at the FC, at which the best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE) is adopted for reliable estimation. We aim to solve the following two power allocation problems: 1) minimizing distortion under various power constraints; and 2) minimizing total transmit power under distortion constraints, where the distortion is measured in terms of mean-squared error of the BLUE. Two iterative algorithms are developed to solve the non-convex problems, which converge at least to a local optimum. In particular, the above algorithms are designed to jointly optimize the amplification coefficients, energy beamforming, and receive filtering. For each problem, a suboptimal design, a single-antenna FC scenario, and a common harvester deployment for colocated sensors, are also studied. Using the powerful semidefinite relaxation framework, our result is shown to be valid for any number of sensors, each with different noise power, and for an arbitrarily number of antennas at the FC.

Functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotube based sensors for distributed methane leak detection

Science.gov (United States)

This paper presents a highly sensitive, energy efficient and low-cost distributed methane (CH4) sensor system (DMSS) for continuous monitoring, detection and localization of CH4 leaks in natural gas infrastructure such as transmission and distribution pipelines, wells, and produc...

State-of-The-Art and Applications of 3D Imaging Sensors in Industry, Cultural Heritage, Medicine, and Criminal Investigation.

Science.gov (United States)

Sansoni, Giovanna; Trebeschi, Marco; Docchio, Franco

2009-01-01

3D imaging sensors for the acquisition of three dimensional (3D) shapes have created, in recent years, a considerable degree of interest for a number of applications. The miniaturization and integration of the optical and electronic components used to build them have played a crucial role in the achievement of compactness, robustness and flexibility of the sensors. Today, several 3D sensors are available on the market, even in combination with other sensors in a "sensor fusion" approach. An importance equal to that of physical miniaturization has the portability of the measurements, via suitable interfaces, into software environments designed for their elaboration, e.g., CAD-CAM systems, virtual renders, and rapid prototyping tools. In this paper, following an overview of the state-of-art of 3D imaging sensors, a number of significant examples of their use are presented, with particular reference to industry, heritage, medicine, and criminal investigation applications.

Development of Microfabricated Chemical Gas Sensors and Sensor Arrays for Aerospace Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, G. W.; Neudeck, P. G.; Fralick, G.; Thomas, V.; Liu, C. C.; Wu, W. H.; Ward, B.; Makel, D.

2002-01-01

Aerospace applications require the development of chemical sensors with capabilities beyond those of commercially available sensors. In particular, factors such as minimal sensor size, weight, and power consumption are particularly important. Development areas which have potential aerospace applications include launch vehicle leak detection, engine health monitoring, fire detection, and environmental monitoring. Sensor development for these applications is based on progress in three types of technology: 1) Micromachining and microfabrication (Microsystem) technology to fabricate miniaturized sensors. 2) The use of nanocrystalline materials to develop sensors with improved stability combined with higher sensitivity. 3) The development of high temperature semiconductors, especially silicon carbide. However, due to issues of selectivity and cross-sensitivity, individual sensors are limited in the amount of information that they can provide in environments that contain multiple chemical species. Thus, sensor arrays are being developed to address detection needs in such multi-species environments. This paper discusses the needs of space applications as well as the point-contact sensor technology and sensor arrays being developed to address these needs. Sensors to measure hydrogen, hydrocarbons, hydrazine, nitrogen oxides (NO,), carbon monoxide, oxygen, and carbon dioxide are being developed as well as arrays for leak, fire, and emissions detection. Demonstrations of the technology will also be discussed. It is concluded that microfabricated sensor technology has significant potential for use in a range of aerospace applications.

The effect of temperature and the control rod position on the spatial neutron flux distribution in the Syrian Miniature Neutron Source Reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khattab, K.; Omar, H.; Ghazi, N.

2007-01-01

The effect of water and fuel temperature increase and changes in the control rod positions on the spatial neutron flux distribution in the Syrian Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR) is discussed. The cross sections of all the reactor components at different temperatures are generated using the WIMSD4 code. These group constants are used then in the CITATION code to calculate the special neutron flux distribution using four energy groups. This work shows that water and fuel temperature increase in the reactor during the reactor daily operating time does not affect the spatial neutron flux distribution in the reactor. Changing the control rod position does not affect as well the spatial neutron flux distribution except in the region around the control rod position. This stability in the spatial neutron flux distribution, especially in the inner and outer irradiation sites, makes MNSR as a good tool for the neutron activation analysis (NAA) technique and production of radioisotopes with medium or short half lives during the reactor daily operating time. (author)

High-Sensitivity Low-Noise Miniature Fluxgate Magnetometers Using a Flip Chip Conceptual Design

OpenAIRE

Lu, Chih-Cheng; Huang, Jeff; Chiu, Po-Kai; Chiu, Shih-Liang; Jeng, Jen-Tzong

2014-01-01

This paper presents a novel class of miniature fluxgate magnetometers fabricated on a print circuit board (PCB) substrate and electrically connected to each other similar to the current “flip chip” concept in semiconductor package. This sensor is soldered together by reversely flipping a 5 cm × 3 cm PCB substrate to the other identical one which includes dual magnetic cores, planar pick-up coils, and 3-D excitation coils constructed by planar Cu interconnections patterned on PCB substrates. P...

Optimum Layout for Sensors in Water Distribution Networks through Ant Colony Algorithm: A Dual Use Vision

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seyed Mehdi Miri

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The accidental or intentional entry of contaminants or self-deterioration of the water quality within the network itself can severely harm public health. Efficient water quality monitoring is one of the most important tools to guarantee a reliable potable water supply to consumers of drinking water distribution systems. Considering the high purchase, installation and maintenance cost of sensors in water distribution networks deploying two independent sensor networks within one distribution system is not only bounded by physical constraints but also is not a cost-effective approach. Therefore, need for combining different objectives and designing sensor network to simultaneity satisfying these objectives is felt. Sensors should comply with dual use benefits. Sensor locations and types should be integrated not only for achieving water security goals but also for accomplishing other water utility objectives, such as satisfying regulatory monitoring requirements or collecting information to solve water quality problems. In this study, a dual use vision for the sensor layout problem in the municipal water networks, is formulated and solved with the ant colony algorithm.

Distributed Long-Gauge Optical Fiber Sensors Based Self-Sensing FRP Bar for Concrete Structure

OpenAIRE

Tang, Yongsheng; Wu, Zhishen

2016-01-01

Brillouin scattering-based distributed optical fiber (OF) sensing technique presents advantages for concrete structure monitoring. However, the existence of spatial resolution greatly decreases strain measurement accuracy especially around cracks. Meanwhile, the brittle feature of OF also hinders its further application. In this paper, the distributed OF sensor was firstly proposed as long-gauge sensor to improve strain measurement accuracy. Then, a new type of self-sensing fiber reinforced p...

High spatial and temporal resolution interrogation of fully distributed chirped fiber Bragg grating sensors

OpenAIRE

Ahmad, Eamonn J.; Wang, Chao; Feng, Dejun; Yan, Zhijun; Zhang, Lin

2017-01-01

A novel interrogation technique for fully distributed linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating (LCFBG) strain sensors with simultaneous high temporal and spatial resolution based on optical time-stretch frequency-domain reflectometry (OTS-FDR) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. LCFBGs is a promising candidate for fully distributed sensors thanks to its longer grating length and broader reflection bandwidth compared to normal uniform FBGs. In the proposed system, two identical LCFBGs are...

CMOS Imaging of Pin-Printed Xerogel-Based Luminescent Sensor Microarrays.

Science.gov (United States)

Yao, Lei; Yung, Ka Yi; Khan, Rifat; Chodavarapu, Vamsy P; Bright, Frank V

2010-12-01

We present the design and implementation of a luminescence-based miniaturized multisensor system using pin-printed xerogel materials which act as host media for chemical recognition elements. We developed a CMOS imager integrated circuit (IC) to image the luminescence response of the xerogel-based sensor array. The imager IC uses a 26 × 20 (520 elements) array of active pixel sensors and each active pixel includes a high-gain phototransistor to convert the detected optical signals into electrical currents. The imager includes a correlated double sampling circuit and pixel address/digital control circuit; the image data is read-out as coded serial signal. The sensor system uses a light-emitting diode (LED) to excite the target analyte responsive luminophores doped within discrete xerogel-based sensor elements. As a prototype, we developed a 4 × 4 (16 elements) array of oxygen (O 2 ) sensors. Each group of 4 sensor elements in the array (arranged in a row) is designed to provide a different and specific sensitivity to the target gaseous O 2 concentration. This property of multiple sensitivities is achieved by using a strategic mix of two oxygen sensitive luminophores ([Ru(dpp) 3 ] 2+ and ([Ru(bpy) 3 ] 2+ ) in each pin-printed xerogel sensor element. The CMOS imager consumes an average power of 8 mW operating at 1 kHz sampling frequency driven at 5 V. The developed prototype system demonstrates a low cost and miniaturized luminescence multisensor system.

Distributed fiber optic sensor-enhanced detection and prediction of shrinkage-induced delamination of ultra-high-performance concrete overlay

Science.gov (United States)

Bao, Yi; Valipour, Mahdi; Meng, Weina; Khayat, Kamal H.; Chen, Genda

2017-08-01

This study develops a delamination detection system for smart ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) overlays using a fully distributed fiber optic sensor. Three 450 mm (length) × 200 mm (width) × 25 mm (thickness) UHPC overlays were cast over an existing 200 mm thick concrete substrate. The initiation and propagation of delamination due to early-age shrinkage of the UHPC overlay were detected as sudden increases and their extension in spatial distribution of shrinkage-induced strains measured from the sensor based on pulse pre-pump Brillouin optical time domain analysis. The distributed sensor is demonstrated effective in detecting delamination openings from microns to hundreds of microns. A three-dimensional finite element model with experimental material properties is proposed to understand the complete delamination process measured from the distributed sensor. The model is validated using the distributed sensor data. The finite element model with cohesive elements for the overlay-substrate interface can predict the complete delamination process.

Camera-marker and inertial sensor fusion for improved motion tracking

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roetenberg, D.; Veltink, P.H.

2005-01-01

A method for combining a camera-marker based motion analysis system with miniature inertial sensors is proposed. It is used to fill gaps of optical data and can increase the data rate of the optical system.

Developments in Emission Measurements Using Lightweight Sensors and Samplers.

Science.gov (United States)

Lightweight emission measurement systems making use of miniaturized sensors and samplers have been developed for portable and aerial sampling for an array of pollutants. Shoebox-sized systems called “Kolibri”, weighing 3-5 kg, have been deployed on NASA-flown unmanned...

Chemical Gas Sensors for Aeronautic and Space Applications 2

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, G. W.; Chen, L. Y.; Neudeck, P. G.; Knight, D.; Liu, C. C.; Wu, Q. H.; Zhou, H. J.; Makel, D.; Liu, M.; Rauch, W. A.

1998-01-01

Aeronautic and Space applications require the development of chemical sensors with capabilities beyond those of commercially available sensors. Areas of most interest include launch vehicle safety monitoring emission monitoring and fire detection. This paper discusses the needs of aeronautic and space applications and the point-contact sensor technology being developed to address these needs. The development of these sensor is based on progress two types of technology: 1) Micro-machining and micro-fabrication technology to fabricate miniaturized sensors. 2) The development of high temperature semiconductors, especially silicon carbide. Sensor development for each application involves its own challenges in the fields of materials science and fabrication technology. The number of dual-use commercial applications of this micro-fabricated gas sensor technology make this area of sensor development a field of significant interest.

Chemical Gas Sensors for Aeronautics and Space Applications III

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, G. W.; Neudeck, P. G.; Chen, L. Y.; Liu, C. C.; Wu, Q. H.; Sawayda, M. S.; Jin, Z.; Hammond, J.; Makel, D.; Liu, M.;

Distributed Algorithm for Voronoi Partition of Wireless Sensor Networks with a Limited Sensing Range.

Science.gov (United States)

He, Chenlong; Feng, Zuren; Ren, Zhigang

2018-02-03

For Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), the Voronoi partition of a region is a challenging problem owing to the limited sensing ability of each sensor and the distributed organization of the network. In this paper, an algorithm is proposed for each sensor having a limited sensing range to compute its limited Voronoi cell autonomously, so that the limited Voronoi partition of the entire WSN is generated in a distributed manner. Inspired by Graham's Scan (GS) algorithm used to compute the convex hull of a point set, the limited Voronoi cell of each sensor is obtained by sequentially scanning two consecutive bisectors between the sensor and its neighbors. The proposed algorithm called the Boundary Scan (BS) algorithm has a lower computational complexity than the existing Range-Constrained Voronoi Cell (RCVC) algorithm and reaches the lower bound of the computational complexity of the algorithms used to solve the problem of this kind. Moreover, it also improves the time efficiency of a key step in the Adjust-Sensing-Radius (ASR) algorithm used to compute the exact Voronoi cell. Extensive numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the correctness and effectiveness of the BS algorithm. The distributed realization of the BS combined with a localization algorithm in WSNs is used to justify the WSN nature of the proposed algorithm.

Distributed dual-parameter optical fiber sensor based on cascaded microfiber Fabry-Pérot interferometers

Science.gov (United States)

Xiang, Yang; Luo, Yiyang; Zhang, Wei; Liu, Deming; Sun, Qizhen

2017-04-01

We propose and demonstrate a distributed fiber sensor based on cascaded microfiber Fabry-Perot interferometers (MFPI) for simultaneous refractive index (SRI) and temperature measurement. By employing MFPI which is fabricated by taper-drawing the center of a uniform fiber Bragg grating (FBG) on standard fiber into a section of microfiber, dual parameters including SRI and temperature can be detected through demodulating the reflection spectrum of the MFPI. Further, wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) is applied to realize distributed dual-parameter fiber sensor by using cascaded MFPIs with different Bragg wavelengths. A prototype sensor system with 5 cascaded MFPIs is constructed to experimentally demonstrate the sensing performance.

Miniaturized robotically deployed sensor systems for in-situ characterization of hazardous waste

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fischer, G.J.

1996-01-01

A series of ''MiniLab'' end effectors are currently being designed for robotic deployment in hazardous areas such as waste storage tanks at Idaho National Engineering Laboratories (INEL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). These MiniLabs will be the first ever multichannel hazardous waste characterization end effectors deployed in underground high level waste storage tanks. They consist of a suite of chemical, radiological, and physical properties sensors integrated into a compact package mounted on the end of a robotic arm and/or vehicle. Most of the sensors are commercially available thus reducing the overall cost of design and maintenance. Sensor configurations can be customized depending on site/customer needs. This paper will address issues regarding the cost of field sampling verses MiniLab in-situ measurements and a brief background of the Light Duty utility Arm (LDUA) program. Topics receiving in depth attention will include package size parameters/constraints, design specifications, and investigations of currently available sensor technology. Sensors include radiological, gas, chemical, electrolytic, visual, temperature, and ranging. The effects of radiation on the life of the systems/sensors will also be discussed. Signal processing, control, display, and data acquisition methods will be described. The paper will conclude with an examination of possible applications for MiniLabs

A Miniaturized Nickel Oxide Thermistor via Aerosol Jet Technology.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chia; Hong, Guan-Yi; Li, Kuan-Ming; Young, Hong-Tsu

2017-11-12

In this study, a miniaturized thermistor sensor was produced using the Aerosol Jet printing process for temperature sensing applications. A nickel oxide nanoparticle ink with a large temperature coefficient of resistance was fabricated. The thermistor was printed with a circular NiO thin film in between the two parallel silver conductive tracks on a cutting tool insert. The printed thermistor, which has an adjustable dimension with a submillimeter scale, operates over a range of 30-250 °C sensitively (B value of ~4310 K) without hysteretic effects. Moreover, the thermistor may be printed on a 3D surface through the Aerosol Jet printing process, which has increased capability for wide temperature-sensing applications.

NSTX High Temperature Sensor Systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McCormack, B.; Kugel, H.W.; Goranson, P.; Kaita, R.

1999-01-01

The design of the more than 300 in-vessel sensor systems for the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) has encountered several challenging fusion reactor diagnostic issues involving high temperatures and space constraints. This has resulted in unique miniature, high temperature in-vessel sensor systems mounted in small spaces behind plasma facing armor tiles, and they are prototypical of possible high power reactor first-wall applications. In the Center Stack, Divertor, Passive Plate, and vessel wall regions, the small magnetic sensors, large magnetic sensors, flux loops, Rogowski Coils, thermocouples, and Langmuir Probes are qualified for 600 degrees C operation. This rating will accommodate both peak rear-face graphite tile temperatures during operations and the 350 degrees C bake-out conditions. Similar sensor systems including flux loops, on other vacuum vessel regions are qualified for 350 degrees C operation. Cabling from the sensors embedded in the graphite tiles follows narrow routes to exit the vessel. The detailed sensor design and installation methods of these diagnostic systems developed for high-powered ST operation are discussed

Low Power Camera-on-a-Chip Using CMOS Active Pixel Sensor Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Fossum, E. R.

1995-01-01

A second generation image sensor technology has been developed at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a result of the continuing need to miniaturize space science imaging instruments. Implemented using standard CMOS, the active pixel sensor (APS) technology permits the integration of the detector array with on-chip timing, control and signal chain electronics, including analog-to-digital conversion.

Cerebellar abiotrophy in a miniature schnauzer

OpenAIRE

Berry, Michelle L.; Blas-Machado, Uriel

2003-01-01

A 3.5-month-old miniature schnauzer was presented for signs of progressive cerebellar ataxia. Necropsy revealed cerebellar abiotrophy. This is the first reported case of cerebellar abiotrophy in a purebred miniature schnauzer.

Cerebellar abiotrophy in a miniature schnauzer.

Science.gov (United States)

Berry, Michelle L; Blas-Machado, Uriel

2003-08-01

A 3.5-month-old miniature schnauzer was presented for signs of progressive cerebellar ataxia. Necropsy revealed cerebellar abiotrophy. This is the first reported case of cerebellar abiotrophy in a purebred miniature schnauzer.

Radiation distribution sensor with optical fibers for high radiation fields

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Takada, Eiji; Kimura, Atsushi; Hosono, Yoneichi; Takahashi, Hiroyuki; Nakazawa, Masaharu

1999-01-01

Radiation distribution sensors with their feasibilities have been described in earlier works. However, due to large radiation induced transmission losses in optical fibers, especially in the visible wavelength region, it has been difficult to apply these techniques to high radiation fields. In this study, we proposed a new concept of optical fiber based radiation distribution measurements with near infrared (IR) emission. Near IR scintillators were attached to the ends of optical fibers, where the fibers were bundled and connected to an N-MOS line sensor or a cooled CCD camera. From the measurements of each area density, the radiation levels at the positions of the scintillators can be known. The linearity between the gamma dose rate at each scintillator and the registered counts has been examined. For correcting the radiation induced loss effects, we applied the Optical Time Domain Reflectometry technique to measure the loss distribution and from the results, a possibility for correction of the loss effect has been demonstrated. The applicable dose rate range was evaluated to be from 0.1 to 10 3 Gy/h. This system can be a promising tool as a flexible dose rate distribution monitor in radiation facilities like nuclear plants and accelerator facilities. (author)

Robust and adaptive band-to-band image transform of UAS miniature multi-lens multispectral camera

Science.gov (United States)

Jhan, Jyun-Ping; Rau, Jiann-Yeou; Haala, Norbert

2018-03-01

Utilizing miniature multispectral (MS) or hyperspectral (HS) cameras by mounting them on an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) has the benefits of convenience and flexibility to collect remote sensing imagery for precision agriculture, vegetation monitoring, and environment investigation applications. Most miniature MS cameras adopt a multi-lens structure to record discrete MS bands of visible and invisible information. The differences in lens distortion, mounting positions, and viewing angles among lenses mean that the acquired original MS images have significant band misregistration errors. We have developed a Robust and Adaptive Band-to-Band Image Transform (RABBIT) method for dealing with the band co-registration of various types of miniature multi-lens multispectral cameras (Mini-MSCs) to obtain band co-registered MS imagery for remote sensing applications. The RABBIT utilizes modified projective transformation (MPT) to transfer the multiple image geometry of a multi-lens imaging system to one sensor geometry, and combines this with a robust and adaptive correction (RAC) procedure to correct several systematic errors and to obtain sub-pixel accuracy. This study applies three state-of-the-art Mini-MSCs to evaluate the RABBIT method's performance, specifically the Tetracam Miniature Multiple Camera Array (MiniMCA), Micasense RedEdge, and Parrot Sequoia. Six MS datasets acquired at different target distances and dates, and locations are also applied to prove its reliability and applicability. Results prove that RABBIT is feasible for different types of Mini-MSCs with accurate, robust, and rapid image processing efficiency.

Research Progress and Development of Sapphire Fiber Sensor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guochang ZHAO

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Sapphire fiber thermometers have become a new potential option in the field of high-temperature measurements. Recent research progress of sapphire fiber sensors is summarized; operational principles, advantages, disadvantages, and applications of sapphire fiber sensors are introduced. Research has shown that sapphire fiber sensors can be used to accurately measure very high temperatures in harsh environments and has been widely applied in fields such as aviation, metallurgy, the chemical industry, energy, and other high temperature measurement areas. Sapphire optical fiber temperature measurement technology will move toward miniaturization, intelligence following the advances in materials, micro-fabrication and communication technologies.

Intelligent Monitoring System with High Temperature Distributed Fiberoptic Sensor for Power Plant Combustion Processes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kwang Y. Lee; Stuart S. Yin; Andre Boehman

2006-09-26

The objective of the proposed work is to develop an intelligent distributed fiber optical sensor system for real-time monitoring of high temperature in a boiler furnace in power plants. Of particular interest is the estimation of spatial and temporal distributions of high temperatures within a boiler furnace, which will be essential in assessing and controlling the mechanisms that form and remove pollutants at the source, such as NOx. The basic approach in developing the proposed sensor system is three fold: (1) development of high temperature distributed fiber optical sensor capable of measuring temperatures greater than 2000 C degree with spatial resolution of less than 1 cm; (2) development of distributed parameter system (DPS) models to map the three-dimensional (3D) temperature distribution for the furnace; and (3) development of an intelligent monitoring system for real-time monitoring of the 3D boiler temperature distribution. Under Task 1, we have set up a dedicated high power, ultrafast laser system for fabricating in-fiber gratings in harsh environment optical fibers, successfully fabricated gratings in single crystal sapphire fibers by the high power laser system, and developed highly sensitive long period gratings (lpg) by electric arc. Under Task 2, relevant mathematical modeling studies of NOx formation in practical combustors have been completed. Studies show that in boiler systems with no swirl, the distributed temperature sensor may provide information sufficient to predict trends of NOx at the boiler exit. Under Task 3, we have investigated a mathematical approach to extrapolation of the temperature distribution within a power plant boiler facility, using a combination of a modified neural network architecture and semigroup theory. Given a set of empirical data with no analytic expression, we first developed an analytic description and then extended that model along a single axis.

Disposable Screen Printed Electrochemical Sensors: Tools for Environmental Monitoring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Akhtar Hayat

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Screen printing technology is a widely used technique for the fabrication of electrochemical sensors. This methodology is likely to underpin the progressive drive towards miniaturized, sensitive and portable devices, and has already established its route from “lab-to-market” for a plethora of sensors. The application of these sensors for analysis of environmental samples has been the major focus of research in this field. As a consequence, this work will focus on recent important advances in the design and fabrication of disposable screen printed sensors for the electrochemical detection of environmental contaminants. Special emphasis is given on sensor fabrication methodology, operating details and performance characteristics for environmental applications.

State-of-The-Art and Applications of 3D Imaging Sensors in Industry, Cultural Heritage, Medicine, and Criminal Investigation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giovanna Sansoni

2009-01-01

Full Text Available 3D imaging sensors for the acquisition of three dimensional (3D shapes have created, in recent years, a considerable degree of interest for a number of applications. The miniaturization and integration of the optical and electronic components used to build them have played a crucial role in the achievement of compactness, robustness and flexibility of the sensors. Today, several 3D sensors are available on the market, even in combination with other sensors in a “sensor fusion” approach. An importance equal to that of physical miniaturization has the portability of the measurements, via suitable interfaces, into software environments designed for their elaboration, e.g., CAD-CAM systems, virtual renders, and rapid prototyping tools. In this paper, following an overview of the state-of-art of 3D imaging sensors, a number of significant examples of their use are presented, with particular reference to industry, heritage, medicine, and criminal investigation applications.

3D inkjet printed disposable environmental monitoring wireless sensor node

KAUST Repository

Farooqui, Muhammad Fahad; Shamim, Atif

2017-01-01

We propose a disposable, miniaturized, moveable, fully integrated 3D inkjet-printed wireless sensor node for large area environmental monitoring applications. As a proof of concept, we show the wireless sensing of temperature, humidity and H2S

Cost effective spectral sensor solutions for hand held and field applications

Science.gov (United States)

Reetz, Edgar; Correns, Martin; Notni, Gunther

2015-05-01

Optical spectroscopy is without doubt one of the most important non-contact measurement principles. It is used in a wide range of applications from bio-medical to industrial fields. One recent trend is to miniaturize spectral sensors to address new areas of application. The most common spectral sensor type is based on diffraction gratings, while other types are based on micro mechanical systems (MEMS) or filter technologies. The authors represent the opinion that there is a potentially wide spread field of applications for spectrometers, but the market limits the range of applications since they cannot keep up with targeted cost requirements for consumer products. The present article explains an alternative approach for miniature multichannel spectrometer to enhance robustness for hand held field applications at a cost efficient price point.

Distributed Intrusion Sensor Using DFB Laser with Optical Feedback and Saturable Absorber

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kyoo Nam Choi

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Characteristics of a distributed intrusion sensor using a coherent DFB laser diode with an external optical feedback and saturable absorber were experimentally investigated. The stimulus at a location of 2 km using a PZT transducer placed the location of a simulated intruder in Φ-OTDR trace after averaging 32 times. Field trials demonstrated the detection of a vehicle and a pedestrian crossing above the sensing line and a loop in a burial depth of 50 cm. This distributed intrusion sensor using a coherent DFB laser diode as the light source had the advantages of a simple structure and intruder detection capability at the underground burial location.

A miniature X-ray tube based on carbon nanotube for an intraoral dental radiography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Hyun Jin; Park, Han Beom; Lee, Ju Hyuk; Cho, Sung Oh

2016-01-01

The number of human teeth that can be radiographically taken is limited. Moreover, at least two X-ray shots are required to get images of teeth from both sides of the mouth. In order to overcome the disadvantages of conventional dental radiography, a dental radiograph has been proposed in which an X-ray tube is inserted into the mouth while an X-ray detector is placed outside the mouth. The miniature X-ray tube is required small size to insert into the mouth. Recently, we have fabricated a miniature x-ray tube with the diameter of 7 mm using a carbon nanotube (CNT) field. But, commercialized miniature X-ray tube were adopted a thermionic type using tungsten filament. The X-ray tubes adopted thermionic emission has a disadvantage of increasing temperature of x-ray tube. So it need to cooling system to cool x-ray tube. On the other hands, X-ray tubes adopted CNT field emitters don't need cooling systems because electrons are emitted from CNT by applying high voltage without heating. We have developed the miniature x-ray tube that produce x-ray with uniform spatial distribution based on carbon nanotube field emitters. The fabricated miniature x-ray tube can be stably and reliably operated at 50kV without any vacuum pump. The developed miniature X-ray tube was applied for intraoral dental radiography that employs an intra-oral CNT-based miniature X-ray tube and extra-oral X-ray detectors. An X-ray image of many teeth was successfully obtained by a single X-ray shot using the intra-oral miniature X-ray tube system. Furthermore, images of both molar teeth of pig were simultaneously obtained by a single X-ray shot. These results show that the intraoral dental radiography, which employs an intraoral miniature X-ray tube and an extraoral X-ray detector, performs better than conventional dental radiography

A miniature X-ray tube based on carbon nanotube for an intraoral dental radiography

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Hyun Jin; Park, Han Beom; Lee, Ju Hyuk; Cho, Sung Oh [KAIST, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-05-15

The number of human teeth that can be radiographically taken is limited. Moreover, at least two X-ray shots are required to get images of teeth from both sides of the mouth. In order to overcome the disadvantages of conventional dental radiography, a dental radiograph has been proposed in which an X-ray tube is inserted into the mouth while an X-ray detector is placed outside the mouth. The miniature X-ray tube is required small size to insert into the mouth. Recently, we have fabricated a miniature x-ray tube with the diameter of 7 mm using a carbon nanotube (CNT) field. But, commercialized miniature X-ray tube were adopted a thermionic type using tungsten filament. The X-ray tubes adopted thermionic emission has a disadvantage of increasing temperature of x-ray tube. So it need to cooling system to cool x-ray tube. On the other hands, X-ray tubes adopted CNT field emitters don't need cooling systems because electrons are emitted from CNT by applying high voltage without heating. We have developed the miniature x-ray tube that produce x-ray with uniform spatial distribution based on carbon nanotube field emitters. The fabricated miniature x-ray tube can be stably and reliably operated at 50kV without any vacuum pump. The developed miniature X-ray tube was applied for intraoral dental radiography that employs an intra-oral CNT-based miniature X-ray tube and extra-oral X-ray detectors. An X-ray image of many teeth was successfully obtained by a single X-ray shot using the intra-oral miniature X-ray tube system. Furthermore, images of both molar teeth of pig were simultaneously obtained by a single X-ray shot. These results show that the intraoral dental radiography, which employs an intraoral miniature X-ray tube and an extraoral X-ray detector, performs better than conventional dental radiography.

Low-Power RF SOI-CMOS Technology for Distributed Sensor Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Dogan, Numan S.

2003-01-01

The objective of this work is to design and develop Low-Power RF SOI-CMOS Technology for Distributed Sensor Networks. We briefly report on the accomplishments in this work. We also list the impact of this work on graduate student research training/involvement.

Secure Distributed Detection under Energy Constraint in IoT-Oriented Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Guomei; Sun, Hao

2016-12-16

We study the secure distributed detection problems under energy constraint for IoT-oriented sensor networks. The conventional channel-aware encryption (CAE) is an efficient physical-layer secure distributed detection scheme in light of its energy efficiency, good scalability and robustness over diverse eavesdropping scenarios. However, in the CAE scheme, it remains an open problem of how to optimize the key thresholds for the estimated channel gain, which are used to determine the sensor's reporting action. Moreover, the CAE scheme does not jointly consider the accuracy of local detection results in determining whether to stay dormant for a sensor. To solve these problems, we first analyze the error probability and derive the optimal thresholds in the CAE scheme under a specified energy constraint. These results build a convenient mathematic framework for our further innovative design. Under this framework, we propose a hybrid secure distributed detection scheme. Our proposal can satisfy the energy constraint by keeping some sensors inactive according to the local detection confidence level, which is characterized by likelihood ratio. In the meanwhile, the security is guaranteed through randomly flipping the local decisions forwarded to the fusion center based on the channel amplitude. We further optimize the key parameters of our hybrid scheme, including two local decision thresholds and one channel comparison threshold. Performance evaluation results demonstrate that our hybrid scheme outperforms the CAE under stringent energy constraints, especially in the high signal-to-noise ratio scenario, while the security is still assured.

Highly processable method for the construction of miniature conducting polymer moisture sensors

Science.gov (United States)

McGovern, Scott T.; Spinks, Geoffrey M.; Wallace, Gordon G.

2005-02-01

A polymer blend incorporating polyaniline (PAn) was used as a sensing medium in the construction of a resistance based humidity sensor. Aniline monomer was polymerised to PAn emeraldine salt (ES) in the presence of poly (butyl acrylate-co-vinyl acetate) and the processable blend was developed by redissolving 1-2 w/w% of the resulting sensing polymer residue in dichloromethane (DCM). Some of this residue was washed in ammonia solution to de-dope the PAn to emeraldine base (EB) to act as a protective layer on the surface of the sensing polymer. This residue was then washed with distilled water until a neutral pH was realised with the waste water, dried and redissolved in DCM at 1-2 w/w% to create a processable blend barrier polymer solution. The final sensor design utilised 125μm polyester insulated platinum wire as conducting electrodes that were dip coated in the PAn ES blend solution and dried in a desiccator. A protective coating was then applied by dip coating in the EB blend solution. The sensors had an overall final thickness of less than 200μm and showed high sensitivity to humidity, low resistance, and good reversibility without hysteresis. The EB protective layer was shown to give more stable and predictable responses to the sensors when placed inside curing epoxies. Polymer based thin film humidity sensors have the advantage that the high processability of the material allows for simple fabrication of a range of geometries including smaller sensor designs. Such sensors may find uses in detecting water content in a number of areas including composite materials, electronic textiles, food/electronics packaging and corrosion detection.

Uncooled tunneling infrared sensor

Science.gov (United States)

Kenny, Thomas W. (Inventor); Kaiser, William J. (Inventor); Podosek, Judith A. (Inventor); Vote, Erika C. (Inventor); Muller, Richard E. (Inventor); Maker, Paul D. (Inventor)

1995-01-01

An uncooled infrared tunneling sensor in which the only moving part is a diaphragm which is deflected into contact with a micromachined silicon tip electrode prepared by a novel lithographic process. Similarly prepared deflection electrodes employ electrostatic force to control the deflection of a silicon nitride, flat diaphragm membrane. The diaphragm exhibits a high resonant frequency which reduces the sensor's sensitivity to vibration. A high bandwidth feedback circuit controls the tunneling current by adjusting the deflection voltage to maintain a constant deflection of the membrane. The resulting infrared sensor can be miniaturized to pixel dimensions smaller than 100 .mu.m. An alternative embodiment is implemented using a corrugated membrane to permit large deflection without complicated clamping and high deflection voltages. The alternative embodiment also employs a pinhole aperture in a membrane to accommodate environmental temperature variation and a sealed chamber to eliminate environmental contamination of the tunneling electrodes and undesireable accoustic coupling to the sensor.

An Electrochemical pH Sensor Based on the Amino-Functionalized Graphene and Polyaniline Composite Film.

Science.gov (United States)

Su, W; Xu, J; Ding, Xianting

2016-12-01

Conventional glass-based pH sensors are usually fragile and space consuming. Herein, a miniature electrochemical pH sensor based on amino-functionalized graphene fragments and polyaniline (NH 2 -G/PANI) composite film is developed via simply one-pot electrochemical polymerization on the ITO-coated glass substrates. Cyclic Voltammetry (CV), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman Spectra are involved to confirm the successful synthesis and to characterize the properties of the NH 2 -G/PANI composite film. The developed electrochemical pH sensor presents fast response, high sensitivity (51.1 mV/pH) and wide detection range when applied to PBS solutions of pH values from 1 to 11. The robust reproducibility and good stability of the developed pH sensors are investigated as well. Compared to the conventional glass-based pH meters, the NH 2 -G/PANI composite film-based pH sensor could be a promising contender for the flexible and miniaturized pH-sensing devices.

Fatigue Damage Monitoring of a Composite Step Lap Joint Using Distributed Optical Fibre Sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Leslie; Chowdhury, Nabil; Wang, John; Chiu, Wing Kong; Kodikara, Jayantha

2016-01-01

Over the past few decades, there has been a considerable interest in the use of distributed optical fibre sensors (DOFS) for structural health monitoring of composite structures. In aerospace-related work, health monitoring of the adhesive joints of composites has become more significant, as they can suffer from cracking and delamination, which can have a significant impact on the integrity of the joint. In this paper, a swept-wavelength interferometry (SWI) based DOFS technique is used to monitor the fatigue in a flush step lap joint composite structure. The presented results will show the potential application of distributed optical fibre sensor for damage detection, as well as monitoring the fatigue crack growth along the bondline of a step lap joint composite structure. The results confirmed that a distributed optical fibre sensor is able to enhance the detection of localised damage in a structure. PMID:28773496

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Quasi-distributed fiber bragg grating array sensor for furnace applications

Science.gov (United States)

Reddy, P. Saidi; Sai Prasad, R. L. N.; Sen Gupta, D.; Sai Shankar, M.; Srimannarayana, K.; Ravinder Reddy, P.

2012-05-01

An experimental work on distributed temperature sensing making use of the fiber Bragg grating (FBG) array sensor for possible applications in the monitoring of the temperature profile in high temperature boilers is presented. A special sensor has been designed for this purpose which consists of four FBGs (of wavelengths λ B1 =1545.8 nm, λ B2 =1547 nm, λ B3 =1550.8 nm, λ B4 =1555.5 nm at 30 °C) written in the hydrogen-loaded fiber in line. All the FBGs are encapsulated inside a stainless steel tube using the rigid probe technique for avoiding micro cracks. The spatial distribution of the temperature profile inside a prototype boiler was measured experimentally both in horizontal and vertical directions employing the above sensor, and the results are presented. Further, the finite element simulation has been carried out by using ANSYS R11 software to predict temperature contours in the boiler, and the experimental and predicted results were found to be closely matching.

Applications of Miniaturized Atomic Magnetic Sensors in Military Systems

Science.gov (United States)

2012-10-01

system - sensors are obscured under traffic cones and laid out in an array depending on the protection scenario; The Operator Control Station tablet PC...T., Peters, M., Sandin, H., Savukov, I., Schultz, L., Urbatis, A., Volegov, P., and Zotev, V., 2010, Ultra-low-field MRI for the detection of

Micro-Optical Distributed Sensors for Aero Propulsion Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Arnold, S.; Otugen, V.

2003-01-01

The objective of this research is to develop micro-opto-mechanical system (MOMS)-based sensors for time- and space-resolved measurements of flow properties in aerodynamics applications. The measurement technique we propose uses optical resonances in dielectric micro-spheres that can be excited by radiation tunneling from optical fibers. It exploits the tunneling-induced and morphology-dependent shifts in the resonant frequencies. The shift in the resonant frequency is dependent on the size, shape, and index of refraction of the micro-sphere. A physical change in the environment surrounding a micro-bead can change one or more of these properties of the sphere thereby causing a shift in frequency of resonance. The change of the resonance frequency can be detected with high resolution by scanning a frequency-tunable laser that is coupled into the fiber and observing the transmission spectrum at the output of the fiber. It is expected that, in the future, the measurement concept will lead to a system of distributed micro-sensors providing spatial data resolved in time and space. The present project focuses on the development and demonstration of temperature sensors using the morphology-dependent optical resonances although in the latter part of the work, we will also develop a pressure sensor. During the period covered in this report, the optical and electronic equipment necessary for the experimental work was assembled and the experimental setup was designed for the single sensor temperature measurements. Software was developed for real-time tracking of the optical resonance shifts. Some preliminary experiments were also carried out to detect temperature using a single bead in a water bath.

Distributed Similarity based Clustering and Compressed Forwarding for wireless sensor networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Arunraja, Muruganantham; Malathi, Veluchamy; Sakthivel, Erulappan

2015-11-01

Wireless sensor networks are engaged in various data gathering applications. The major bottleneck in wireless data gathering systems is the finite energy of sensor nodes. By conserving the on board energy, the life span of wireless sensor network can be well extended. Data communication being the dominant energy consuming activity of wireless sensor network, data reduction can serve better in conserving the nodal energy. Spatial and temporal correlation among the sensor data is exploited to reduce the data communications. Data similar cluster formation is an effective way to exploit spatial correlation among the neighboring sensors. By sending only a subset of data and estimate the rest using this subset is the contemporary way of exploiting temporal correlation. In Distributed Similarity based Clustering and Compressed Forwarding for wireless sensor networks, we construct data similar iso-clusters with minimal communication overhead. The intra-cluster communication is reduced using adaptive-normalized least mean squares based dual prediction framework. The cluster head reduces the inter-cluster data payload using a lossless compressive forwarding technique. The proposed work achieves significant data reduction in both the intra-cluster and the inter-cluster communications, with the optimal data accuracy of collected data. Copyright © 2015 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Miniature probe with semiconductor photodiode for measuring dose rates in radiotherapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Burian, A.

1991-01-01

The probe is designed for gaining information on the magnitude and spatial distribution of the dose which will be absorbed by the patient's body during radiotherapy. The probe satisfies requirements of high-level miniaturization and requirements on the shape and tissue-equivalence of the casing, as well as on efficient electromagnetic shielding. It is fitted with a miniature photodiode. Conductive carbon cement was used for attaching contacts to the photodiode. Efficient electromagnetic shielding was achieved by means of a carbon-based conductive layer. The photodiode casing was made from a mixture of organic materials whose biogenic elements approximate the standard soft human tissue. The geometry of the casing is adapted to the particular field of application of the probe. (Z.S). 2 figs

Handbook of modern sensors physics, designs, and applications

CERN Document Server

Fraden, Jacob

2016-01-01

This book presents a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the theory (physical principles), design, and practical implementations of various sensors for scientific, industrial, and consumer applications. This latest edition focuses on the sensing technologies driven by the expanding use of sensors in mobile devices. These new miniature sensors will be described, with an emphasis on smart sensors which have embedded processing systems. The chapter on chemical sensors has also been expanded to present the latest developments. Digital systems, however complex and intelligent they may be, must receive information from the outside world that is generally analog and not electrical. Sensors are interface devices between various physical values and the electronic circuits that "understand" only a language of moving electrical charges. In other words, sensors are the eyes, ears, and noses of silicon chips. Unlike other books on sensors, the Handbook of Modern Sensors is organized according to the measured variables...

Scalable Coverage Maintenance for Dense Wireless Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jun Lu

2007-06-01

Full Text Available Owing to numerous potential applications, wireless sensor networks have been attracting significant research effort recently. The critical challenge that wireless sensor networks often face is to sustain long-term operation on limited battery energy. Coverage maintenance schemes can effectively prolong network lifetime by selecting and employing a subset of sensors in the network to provide sufficient sensing coverage over a target region. We envision future wireless sensor networks composed of a vast number of miniaturized sensors in exceedingly high density. Therefore, the key issue of coverage maintenance for future sensor networks is the scalability to sensor deployment density. In this paper, we propose a novel coverage maintenance scheme, scalable coverage maintenance (SCOM, which is scalable to sensor deployment density in terms of communication overhead (i.e., number of transmitted and received beacons and computational complexity (i.e., time and space complexity. In addition, SCOM achieves high energy efficiency and load balancing over different sensors. We have validated our claims through both analysis and simulations.

Distributed detection and control of defective thermoelectric generation modules using sensor nodes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chen, Min

2014-01-01

are described, respectively. Defective and potentially healing conditions are dynamically monitored by a voltage sensor node and a temperature sensor node, both of which can judge the defective TEM and decide the related switching actions in a nearly independent way. The periodical wireless transmission from......To maximize the energy productivity, effective in-field detection and real-time control of defective thermoelectric modules (TEMs) are critical in constituting a thermoelectric generation system (TEGS). In this paper, autonomous and distributed sensor nodes are designed to implement the wireless...... a considerable power improvement is illustrated with the proposed measuring method and setup....

Mobile Sensor Networks for Leak and Backflow Detection in Water Distribution Systems

KAUST Repository

Suresh, M. Agumbe; Smith, L.; Rasekh, A.; Stoleru, R.; Banks, M.K.; Shihada, Basem

2014-01-01

Leak and backflow detection are essential aspects of Water Distribution System (WDS) monitoring. Most existing solutions for leak/backflow detection in WDSs focus on the placement of expensive static sensors located strategically. In contrast to these, we propose a solution whereby mobile sensors (i.e., their movement aided only by the inherent water flow in the system) detect leaks/backflow. Information about the leaks/backflow is collected from the sensors either by physically capturing them, or through wireless communication. Specifically, we propose models to maximize leak/backflow detection given a cost constraint (a limit on the number of sensors). Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed solution when compared with the state of the art solutions (e.g., algorithms/protocols and analysis).

Mobile Sensor Networks for Leak and Backflow Detection in Water Distribution Systems

KAUST Repository

Suresh, M. Agumbe

2014-05-01

Leak and backflow detection are essential aspects of Water Distribution System (WDS) monitoring. Most existing solutions for leak/backflow detection in WDSs focus on the placement of expensive static sensors located strategically. In contrast to these, we propose a solution whereby mobile sensors (i.e., their movement aided only by the inherent water flow in the system) detect leaks/backflow. Information about the leaks/backflow is collected from the sensors either by physically capturing them, or through wireless communication. Specifically, we propose models to maximize leak/backflow detection given a cost constraint (a limit on the number of sensors). Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed solution when compared with the state of the art solutions (e.g., algorithms/protocols and analysis).

Discrete sensors distribution for accurate plantar pressure analyses.

Science.gov (United States)

Claverie, Laetitia; Ille, Anne; Moretto, Pierre

2016-12-01

The aim of this study was to determine the distribution of discrete sensors under the footprint for accurate plantar pressure analyses. For this purpose, two different sensor layouts have been tested and compared, to determine which was the most accurate to monitor plantar pressure with wireless devices in research and/or clinical practice. Ten healthy volunteers participated in the study (age range: 23-58 years). The barycenter of pressures (BoP) determined from the plantar pressure system (W-inshoe®) was compared to the center of pressures (CoP) determined from a force platform (AMTI) in the medial-lateral (ML) and anterior-posterior (AP) directions. Then, the vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) obtained from both W-inshoe® and force platform was compared for both layouts for each subject. The BoP and vGRF determined from the plantar pressure system data showed good correlation (SCC) with those determined from the force platform data, notably for the second sensor organization (ML SCC= 0.95; AP SCC=0.99; vGRF SCC=0.91). The study demonstrates that an adjusted placement of removable sensors is key to accurate plantar pressure analyses. These results are promising for a plantar pressure recording outside clinical or laboratory settings, for long time monitoring, real time feedback or for whatever activity requiring a low-cost system. Copyright © 2016 IPEM. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Epidermis Microstructure Inspired Graphene Pressure Sensor with Random Distributed Spinosum for High Sensitivity and Large Linearity.

Science.gov (United States)

Pang, Yu; Zhang, Kunning; Yang, Zhen; Jiang, Song; Ju, Zhenyi; Li, Yuxing; Wang, Xuefeng; Wang, Danyang; Jian, Muqiang; Zhang, Yingying; Liang, Renrong; Tian, He; Yang, Yi; Ren, Tian-Ling

2018-03-27

Recently, wearable pressure sensors have attracted tremendous attention because of their potential applications in monitoring physiological signals for human healthcare. Sensitivity and linearity are the two most essential parameters for pressure sensors. Although various designed micro/nanostructure morphologies have been introduced, the trade-off between sensitivity and linearity has not been well balanced. Human skin, which contains force receptors in a reticular layer, has a high sensitivity even for large external stimuli. Herein, inspired by the skin epidermis with high-performance force sensing, we have proposed a special surface morphology with spinosum microstructure of random distribution via the combination of an abrasive paper template and reduced graphene oxide. The sensitivity of the graphene pressure sensor with random distribution spinosum (RDS) microstructure is as high as 25.1 kPa -1 in a wide linearity range of 0-2.6 kPa. Our pressure sensor exhibits superior comprehensive properties compared with previous surface-modified pressure sensors. According to simulation and mechanism analyses, the spinosum microstructure and random distribution contribute to the high sensitivity and large linearity range, respectively. In addition, the pressure sensor shows promising potential in detecting human physiological signals, such as heartbeat, respiration, phonation, and human motions of a pushup, arm bending, and walking. The wearable pressure sensor array was further used to detect gait states of supination, neutral, and pronation. The RDS microstructure provides an alternative strategy to improve the performance of pressure sensors and extend their potential applications in monitoring human activities.

Quantitative cross-sectional measurement of solid concentration distribution in slurries using a wire-mesh sensor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dos Santos, Eduardo Nunes; Da Silva, Marco Jose; Schleicher, Eckhard; Reinecke, Sebastian; Hampel, Uwe

2016-01-01

Wire-mesh sensors have so far been widely applied in gas–liquid flows where resistance or capacitance distributions are measured and converted into gas or liquid holdup distributions. In this work we report on the qualification of the wire-mesh imaging technique for the measurement of cross-sectional solid concentrations in solid–liquid mixtures. As the dielectric constants of solid particles are different from those of gas, water or oil in the flow, measuring this property can be used as an indication of solid distribution. Experiments were performed in a stirred tank of 100 mm diameter equipped with a capacitance wire-mesh sensor. The wire-mesh sensor was operated at an acquisition speed of 4000 frames per second and has a spatial resolution of 6.25 mm. As solids we used silica sand particles (diameter ∼250 μm) which were suspended in water in a volume concentration range of 1% to 35% to form slurries. By varying the stirring speed, different solid concentration distributions were produced and investigated. In order to convert the measured relative permittivity distribution into a solid concentration distribution, an empirical approach was employed. (paper)

Inheritance of congenital cataracts and microphthalmia in the Miniature Schnauzer.

Science.gov (United States)

Gelatt, K N; Samuelson, D A; Bauer, J E; Das, N D; Wolf, E D; Barrie, K P; Andresen, T L

1983-06-01

Congenital cataracts and microphthalmia in the Miniature Schnauzer were inherited as an autosomal recessive trait. Eighteen matings of affected X affected Miniature Schnauzers resulted in 87 offspring with congenital cataracts and microphthalmia (49 males/38 females). Two matings of congenital cataractous and microphthalmic Miniature Schnauzers (2 females) X a normal Miniature Schnauzer (1 male) yielded 11 clinically normal Miniature Schnauzers (7 males/4 females). Eighteen matings of congenital cataractous and microphthalmic Miniature Schnauzers (6 males) X carrier Miniature Schnauzers (9 females) produced 81 offspring; 39 exhibited congenital cataracts and microphthalmia (20 males/19 females) and 42 had clinically normal eyes (17 males/25 females).

Scalable and Fully Distributed Localization in Large-Scale Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miao Jin

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This work proposes a novel connectivity-based localization algorithm, well suitable for large-scale sensor networks with complex shapes and a non-uniform nodal distribution. In contrast to current state-of-the-art connectivity-based localization methods, the proposed algorithm is highly scalable with linear computation and communication costs with respect to the size of the network; and fully distributed where each node only needs the information of its neighbors without cumbersome partitioning and merging process. The algorithm is theoretically guaranteed and numerically stable. Moreover, the algorithm can be readily extended to the localization of networks with a one-hop transmission range distance measurement, and the propagation of the measurement error at one sensor node is limited within a small area of the network around the node. Extensive simulations and comparison with other methods under various representative network settings are carried out, showing the superior performance of the proposed algorithm.

An Ensemble of HMMs for Cognitive Fault Detection in Distributed Sensor Networks

OpenAIRE

Roveri , Manuel; Trovò , Francesco

2014-01-01

Part 3: Social Media and Mobile Applications of AI; International audience; Distributed sensor networks working in harsh environmental conditions can suffer from permanent or transient faults affecting the embedded electronics or the sensors. Fault Diagnosis Systems (FDSs) have been widely studied in the literature to detect, isolate, identify, and possibly accommodate faults. Recently introduced cognitive FDSs, which represent a novel generation of FDSs, are characterized by the capability t...

Distributed fluorescent optical fiber proximity sensor: Towards a proof of concept

Science.gov (United States)

Gălătuș, Ramona; Faragó, Paul; Miluski, Piotr; Valles, Juan-Antonio

2018-06-01

Fluorescent fibers are optical fibers which emit light as a response to an incident phenomenon, usually an incident light. Operation depends on the doping dyes, which determine specific fluorescence and optical characteristics useful in the development of optical sensors. In this work we propose a low-cost distributed proximity sensor implemented using a red fluorescent fiber, to provide a security option for a surface plasmon resonance system. Operation of the proposed sensor relies on having the incident illumination intensity varied by the presence or absence of an obstacle in the vicinity of the sensing element. This will influence the radiated fluorescence accordingly. The proposed setup for the implementation of the optical proximity sensor assumes having a high brightness LED deployed for axial fiber illumination and a blue LED for side illumination. Electronic processing then accounts for gain and digitization. Measurement results of the prototype validate the proposed concept.

Thermometric convection coefficients for rocket meteorological sensors (tables)

Science.gov (United States)

Staffanson, F. L.

1974-01-01

Values of the convective heat transfer coefficient h, and the recovery factor r, for miniature beads, fine wires, and films in rarefied air flow are shown. Data provide a standard reference for computing consistent operational corrections to rocket meteorological measurements, and for predicting the performance of existing and proposed sensor systems.

Fuzzy-Logic Based Distributed Energy-Efficient Clustering Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Ying; Wang, Jun; Han, Dezhi; Wu, Huafeng; Zhou, Rundong

2017-07-03

Due to the high-energy efficiency and scalability, the clustering routing algorithm has been widely used in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In order to gather information more efficiently, each sensor node transmits data to its Cluster Head (CH) to which it belongs, by multi-hop communication. However, the multi-hop communication in the cluster brings the problem of excessive energy consumption of the relay nodes which are closer to the CH. These nodes' energy will be consumed more quickly than the farther nodes, which brings the negative influence on load balance for the whole networks. Therefore, we propose an energy-efficient distributed clustering algorithm based on fuzzy approach with non-uniform distribution (EEDCF). During CHs' election, we take nodes' energies, nodes' degree and neighbor nodes' residual energies into consideration as the input parameters. In addition, we take advantage of Takagi, Sugeno and Kang (TSK) fuzzy model instead of traditional method as our inference system to guarantee the quantitative analysis more reasonable. In our scheme, each sensor node calculates the probability of being as CH with the help of fuzzy inference system in a distributed way. The experimental results indicate EEDCF algorithm is better than some current representative methods in aspects of data transmission, energy consumption and lifetime of networks.

Gas Sensors Based on Tin Oxide Nanoparticles Synthesized from a Mini-Arc Plasma Source

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ganhua Lu

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Miniaturized gas sensors or electronic noses to rapidly detect and differentiate trace amount of chemical agents are extremely attractive. In this paper, we report on the fabrication and characterization of a functional tin oxide nanoparticle gas sensor. Tin oxide nanoparticles are first synthesized using a convenient and low-cost mini-arc plasma source. The nanoparticle size distribution is measured online using a scanning electrical mobility spectrometer (SEMS. The product nanoparticles are analyzed ex-situ by high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM for morphology and defects, energy dispersive X-ray (EDX spectroscopy for elemental composition, electron diffraction for crystal structure, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS for surface composition. Nonagglomerated rutile tin oxide (SnO2 nanoparticles as small as a few nm have been produced. Larger particles bear a core-shell structure with a metallic core and an oxide shell. The nanoparticles are then assembled onto an e-beam lithographically patterned interdigitated electrode using electrostatic force to fabricate the gas sensor. The nanoparticle sensor exhibits a fast response and a good sensitivity when exposed to 100 ppm ethanol vapor in air.

Chemical sensors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hubbard, C.W.; Gordon, R.L.

1987-05-01

The revolution in analytical chemistry promised by recent developments in the field of chemical sensors has potential for significant positive impact on both research and production activities conducted by and for the Department of Energy. Analyses which were, in the past, performed only with a roomful of expensive equipment can now be performed with miniature solid-state electronic devices or small optical probes. Progress in the development of chemical sensors has been rapid, and the field is currently growing at a great rate. In accordance, Pacific Northwest Laboratory initiated a survey of recent literature so that contributors to active programs in research on analytical methods could be made aware of principles and applications of this new technology. This report presents the results of that survey. The sensors discussed here are divided into three types: micro solid-state devices, optical sensors, and piezoelectric crystal devices. The report is divided into three corresponding sections. The first section, ''Micro Solid-State Devices,'' discusses the design, operation, and application of electronic sensors that are produced in much the same way as standard solid-state electronic devices. The second section, ''Optrodes,'' covers the design and operation of chemical sensors that use fiber optics to detect chemically induced changes in optical properties. The final section, ''Piezoelectric Crystal Detectors,'' discusses two types of chemical sensors that depend on the changes in the properties of an oscillating piezoelectric crystal to detect the presence of certain materials. Advantages and disadvantages of each type of sensor are summarized in each section

Low-cost failure sensor design and development for water pipeline distribution systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Khan, K; Widdop, P D; Day, A J; Wood, A S; Mounce, S R; Machell, J

2002-01-01

This paper describes the design and development of a new sensor which is low cost to manufacture and install and is reliable in operation with sufficient accuracy, resolution and repeatability for use in newly developed systems for pipeline monitoring and leakage detection. To provide an appropriate signal, the concept of a "failure" sensor is introduced, in which the output is not necessarily proportional to the input, but is unmistakably affected when an unusual event occurs. The design of this failure sensor is based on the water opacity which can be indicative of an unusual event in a water distribution network. The laboratory work and field trials necessary to design and prove out this type of failure sensor are described here. It is concluded that a low-cost failure sensor of this type has good potential for use in a comprehensive water monitoring and management system based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANN).

Sensors Based on Bio and Biomimetic Receptors in Medical Diagnostic, Environment, and Food Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kozitsina, Alisa N; Svalova, Tatiana S; Malysheva, Natalia N; Okhokhonin, Andrei V; Vidrevich, Marina B; Brainina, Khiena Z

2018-04-01

Analytical chemistry is now developing mainly in two areas: automation and the creation of complexes that allow, on the one hand, for simultaneously analyzing a large number of samples without the participation of an operator, and on the other, the development of portable miniature devices for personalized medicine and the monitoring of a human habitat. The sensor devices, the great majority of which are biosensors and chemical sensors, perform the role of the latter. That last line is considered in the proposed review. Attention is paid to transducers, receptors, techniques of immobilization of the receptor layer on the transducer surface, processes of signal generation and detection, and methods for increasing sensitivity and accuracy. The features of sensors based on synthetic receptors and additional components (aptamers, molecular imprinted polymers, biomimetics) are discussed. Examples of bio- and chemical sensors' application are given. Miniaturization paths, new power supply means, and wearable and printed sensors are described. Progress in this area opens a revolutionary era in the development of methods of on-site and in-situ monitoring, that is, paving the way from the "test-tube to the smartphone".

Monitoring of yeast cell concentration using a micromachined impedance sensor

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Krommenhoek, E.E.; Gardeniers, Johannes G.E.; Bomer, Johan G.; van den Berg, Albert; Li, X.; Ottens, M.; van der Wielen, L.A.M.; van Dedem, G.W.K.; van Leeuwen, M.; van Gulik, W.M.; Heijnen, J.J.

2005-01-01

The paper describes the design, modelling and experimental characterization of a micromachined impedance sensor for on-line monitoring of the viable yeast cell concentration (biomass) in a miniaturized cell assay. Measurements in a Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell culture show that the permittivity of

Estimation of distributed Fermat-point location for wireless sensor networking.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Po-Hsian; Chen, Jiann-Liang; Larosa, Yanuarius Teofilus; Chiang, Tsui-Lien

2011-01-01

This work presents a localization scheme for use in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) that is based on a proposed connectivity-based RF localization strategy called the distributed Fermat-point location estimation algorithm (DFPLE). DFPLE applies triangle area of location estimation formed by intersections of three neighboring beacon nodes. The Fermat point is determined as the shortest path from three vertices of the triangle. The area of estimated location then refined using Fermat point to achieve minimum error in estimating sensor nodes location. DFPLE solves problems of large errors and poor performance encountered by localization schemes that are based on a bounding box algorithm. Performance analysis of a 200-node development environment reveals that, when the number of sensor nodes is below 150, the mean error decreases rapidly as the node density increases, and when the number of sensor nodes exceeds 170, the mean error remains below 1% as the node density increases. Second, when the number of beacon nodes is less than 60, normal nodes lack sufficient beacon nodes to enable their locations to be estimated. However, the mean error changes slightly as the number of beacon nodes increases above 60. Simulation results revealed that the proposed algorithm for estimating sensor positions is more accurate than existing algorithms, and improves upon conventional bounding box strategies.

Serum C-reactive protein concentrations in healthy Miniature Schnauzer dogs.

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Valerie M; Kidney, Beverly A; Snead, Elisabeth C R; Myers, Sherry L; Jackson, Marion L

2011-09-01

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a sensitive marker for inflammation in people and dogs. In people, an association between CRP concentration and atherosclerosis has been reported. Atherosclerosis is rare in dogs, but the Miniature Schnauzer breed may be at increased risk for developing this vascular disease. It is not known if CRP concentrations in Miniature Schnauzer dogs differ from those in other dog breeds. Our objectives were to validate an automated human CRP assay for measuring CRP in dogs and compare CRP concentrations in healthy Miniature Schnauzer dogs with those in non-Miniature Schnauzer breeds. Sera from 37 non-Miniature Schnauzer dogs with inflammatory disease were pooled and used to validate a human CRP immunoturbidimetric assay for measuring canine CRP. Blood was collected from 20 healthy Miniature Schnauzer dogs and 41 healthy dogs of other breeds. Median serum CRP concentration of healthy Miniature Schnauzer dogs was compared with that of healthy non-Miniature Schnauzer dogs. The human CRP assay measured CRP reliably with linearity between 0 and 20 mg/L. CRP concentration for healthy Miniature Schnauzer dogs (median 4.0 mg/L, minimum-maximum 0-18.2 mg/L) was significantly higher than for the healthy non-Miniature Schnauzer dogs (median 0.1 mg/L, minimum-maximum 0-10.7 mg/L); 17 of the 20 Miniature Schnauzer dogs had values that overlapped with those of the non-Miniature Schnauzer dogs. Median CRP concentration of Miniature Schnauzer dogs was slightly higher than that of other breeds of dogs. A relationship between higher CRP concentration in Miniature Schnauzer dogs and idiopathic hyperlipidemia, pancreatitis, and possible increased risk for atherosclerosis remains to be determined. ©2011 American Society for Veterinary Clinical Pathology.

Integrated electrochemical sensor array for on-line monitoring of yeast fermentations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Krommenhoek, E.E.; Gardeniers, Johannes G.E.; Bomer, Johan G.; Li, X.; Ottens, M.; van Dedem, G.W.K.; van Leeuwen, M.; van Gulik, W.M.; van der Wielen, L.A.M.; Heijnen, J.J.; van den Berg, Albert

2007-01-01

This paper describes the design, modeling, and experimental characterization of an electrochemical sensor array for on-line monitoring of fermentor conditions in both miniaturized cell assays and in industrial scale fertnentations. The viable biomass concentration is determined from impedance

The development of sensors and techniques for in situ water quality monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, C. C.

1976-01-01

Enzyme electrodes and chloride ion electrodes were investigated for in situ monitoring of water quality. Preliminary results show that miniature chloride ion electrodes and a phenol sensor are most promising in determining trace contaminants in water.

A Partially Distributed Intrusion Detection System for Wireless Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eung Jun Cho

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The increasing use of wireless sensor networks, which normally comprise several very small sensor nodes, makes their security an increasingly important issue. They can be practically and efficiently secured using intrusion detection systems. Conventional security mechanisms are not usually applicable due to the sensor nodes having limitations of computational power, memory capacity, and battery power. Therefore, specific security systems should be designed to function under constraints of energy or memory. A partially distributed intrusion detection system with low memory and power demands is proposed here. It employs a Bloom filter, which allows reduced signature code size. Multiple Bloom filters can be combined to reduce the signature code for each Bloom filter array. The mechanism could then cope with potential denial of service attacks, unlike many previous detection systems with Bloom filters. The mechanism was evaluated and validated through analysis and simulation.

Asynchronous Group Key Distribution on top of the CC2420 Security Mechanisms for Sensor Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Morten Tranberg

2009-01-01

scheme with no time synchronization requirements. The scheme decreases the number of key updates by providing them on an as needed basis according to the amount of network traffic. We evaluate the CC2420 radio security mechanism and show how to use it as a basis to implement secure group communication......A sensor network is a network consisting of small, inexpensive, low-powered sensor nodes that communicate to complete a common task. Sensor nodes are characterized by having limited communication and computation capabilities, energy, and storage. They often are deployed in hostile environments...... creating a demand for encryption and authentication of the messages sent between them. Due to severe resource constraints on the sensor nodes, efficient key distribution schemes and secure communication protocols with low overhead are desired. In this paper we present an asynchronous group key distribution...

Distributed coding/decoding complexity in video sensor networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Cordeiro, Paulo J; Assunção, Pedro

2012-01-01

Video Sensor Networks (VSNs) are recent communication infrastructures used to capture and transmit dense visual information from an application context. In such large scale environments which include video coding, transmission and display/storage, there are several open problems to overcome in practical implementations. This paper addresses the most relevant challenges posed by VSNs, namely stringent bandwidth usage and processing time/power constraints. In particular, the paper proposes a novel VSN architecture where large sets of visual sensors with embedded processors are used for compression and transmission of coded streams to gateways, which in turn transrate the incoming streams and adapt them to the variable complexity requirements of both the sensor encoders and end-user decoder terminals. Such gateways provide real-time transcoding functionalities for bandwidth adaptation and coding/decoding complexity distribution by transferring the most complex video encoding/decoding tasks to the transcoding gateway at the expense of a limited increase in bit rate. Then, a method to reduce the decoding complexity, suitable for system-on-chip implementation, is proposed to operate at the transcoding gateway whenever decoders with constrained resources are targeted. The results show that the proposed method achieves good performance and its inclusion into the VSN infrastructure provides an additional level of complexity control functionality.

LIDeA: A Distributed Lightweight Intrusion Detection Architecture for Sensor Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Giannetsos, Athanasios; Krontiris, Ioannis; Dimitriou, Tassos

2008-01-01

to achieve a more autonomic and complete defense mechanism, even against attacks that have not been anticipated in advance. In this paper, we present a lightweight intrusion detection system, called LIDeA, designed for wireless sensor networks. LIDeA is based on a distributed architecture, in which nodes......Wireless sensor networks are vulnerable to adversaries as they are frequently deployed in open and unattended environments. Preventive mechanisms can be applied to protect them from an assortment of attacks. However, more sophisticated methods, like intrusion detection systems, are needed...

A ph sensor based on a flexible substrate

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Wen-Ding

pH sensor is an essential component used in many chemical, food, and bio-material industries. Conventional glass electrodes have been used to construct pH sensors, however, have some disadvantages. Glass electrodes are easily affected by alkaline or HF solution, they require a high input impedance pH meter, they often exhibit a sluggish response. In some specific applications, it is also difficult to use glass electrodes for in vivo biomedical or food monitoring applications due to the difficulty of size miniaturization, planarization and polymerization based on current manufacturing technologies. In this work, we have demonstrated a novel flexible pH sensor based on low-cost sol-gel fabrication process of iridium oxide (IrOx) sensing film (IROF). A pair of flexible miniature IrOx/AgCl electrode generated the action potential from the solution by electrochemical mechanism to obtain the pH level of the reagent. The fabrication process including sol-gel, thermal oxidation, and the electro-plating process of the silver chloride (AgCl) reference electrode were reported in the work. The IrOx film was verified and characterized using electron dispersive analysis (EDAX), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and x-ray diffraction (XRD). The flexible pH sensor's performance and characterization have been investigated with different testing parameters such as sensitivity, response time, stability, reversibility, repeatability, selectivity and temperature dependence. The flexible IrOx pH sensors exhibited promising sensing performance with a near-Nernstian response of sensitivity which is between --51.1mV/pH and --51.7mV/pH in different pH levels ranging from 1.5 to 12 at 25°C. Two applications including gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) diagnosis and food freshness wireless monitoring using our micro-flexible IrOx pH sensors were demonstrated. For the GERD diagnosing system, we embedded the micro flexible pH sensor on a 1.2cmx3.8cm of the capsule size of wireless sensor

Fiber Bragg Grating Array as a Quasi Distributed Temperature Sensor for Furnace Boiler Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Reddy, P. Saidi; Prasad, R. L. N. Sai; Sengupta, D.; Shankar, M. Sai; Srimannarayana, K.; Kishore, P.; Rao, P. Vengal

2011-10-01

This paper presents the experimental work on distributed temperature sensing making use of Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) array sensor for possible applications in the monitoring of temperature profile in high temperature boilers. A special sensor has been designed for this purpose which consists of four FBGs (of wavelengths λB1 = 1547.28 nm, λB2 = 1555.72 nm, λB3 = 1550.84 nm, λB4 = 1545.92 nm) written in hydrogen loaded fiber in line with a spacing of 15 cm between them. All the FBGs are encapsulated inside a stainless steel tube for avoiding micro cracks using rigid probe technique. The spatial distribution of temperature profile inside a prototype boiler has been measured experimentally both in horizontal and vertical directions employing the above sensor and the results are presented.

Flexible Ferroelectric Sensors with Ultrahigh Pressure Sensitivity and Linear Response over Exceptionally Broad Pressure Range.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Youngoh; Park, Jonghwa; Cho, Soowon; Shin, Young-Eun; Lee, Hochan; Kim, Jinyoung; Myoung, Jinyoung; Cho, Seungse; Kang, Saewon; Baig, Chunggi; Ko, Hyunhyub

2018-04-24

Flexible pressure sensors with a high sensitivity over a broad linear range can simplify wearable sensing systems without additional signal processing for the linear output, enabling device miniaturization and low power consumption. Here, we demonstrate a flexible ferroelectric sensor with ultrahigh pressure sensitivity and linear response over an exceptionally broad pressure range based on the material and structural design of ferroelectric composites with a multilayer interlocked microdome geometry. Due to the stress concentration between interlocked microdome arrays and increased contact area in the multilayer design, the flexible ferroelectric sensors could perceive static/dynamic pressure with high sensitivity (47.7 kPa -1 , 1.3 Pa minimum detection). In addition, efficient stress distribution between stacked multilayers enables linear sensing over exceptionally broad pressure range (0.0013-353 kPa) with fast response time (20 ms) and high reliability over 5000 repetitive cycles even at an extremely high pressure of 272 kPa. Our sensor can be used to monitor diverse stimuli from a low to a high pressure range including weak gas flow, acoustic sound, wrist pulse pressure, respiration, and foot pressure with a single device.

Structural health monitoring of an existing PC box girder bridge with distributed HCFRP sensors in a destructive test

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Caiqian; Wu, Zhishen; Zhang, Yufeng

2008-06-01

The application of hybrid carbon fiber reinforced polymer (HCFRP) sensors was addressed to monitor the structural health of an existing prestressed concrete (PC) box girder bridge in a destructive test. The novel HCFRP sensors were fabricated with three types of carbon tows in order to realize distributed and broad-based sensing, which is characterized by long-gauge length and low cost. The HCFRP sensors were bonded on the bottom and side surfaces of the existing bridge to monitor its structural health. The gauge lengths of the sensors bonded on the bottom and side surfaces were 1.5 m and 1.0 m, respectively. The HCFRP sensors were distributed on the bridge for two purposes. One was to detect damage and monitor the structural health of the bridge, such as the initiation and propagation of new cracks, strain distribution and yielding of steel reinforcements. The other purpose was to monitor the propagation of existing cracks. The good relationship between the change in electrical resistance and load indicates that the HCFRP sensors can provide actual infrastructures with a distributed damage detection and structural health monitoring system. Corrections were made to this article on 13 May 2008. The corrected electronic version is identical to the print version.

Structural health monitoring of an existing PC box girder bridge with distributed HCFRP sensors in a destructive test

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang Caiqian; Wu Zhishen; Zhang Yufeng

2008-01-01

The application of hybrid carbon fiber reinforced polymer (HCFRP) sensors was addressed to monitor the structural health of an existing prestressed concrete (PC) box girder bridge in a destructive test. The novel HCFRP sensors were fabricated with three types of carbon tows in order to realize distributed and broad-based sensing, which is characterized by long-gauge length and low cost. The HCFRP sensors were bonded on the bottom and side surfaces of the existing bridge to monitor its structural health. The gauge lengths of the sensors bonded on the bottom and side surfaces were 1.5 m and 1.0 m, respectively. The HCFRP sensors were distributed on the bridge for two purposes. One was to detect damage and monitor the structural health of the bridge, such as the initiation and propagation of new cracks, strain distribution and yielding of steel reinforcements. The other purpose was to monitor the propagation of existing cracks. The good relationship between the change in electrical resistance and load indicates that the HCFRP sensors can provide actual infrastructures with a distributed damage detection and structural health monitoring system. Corrections were made to this article on 13 May 2008. The corrected electronic version is identical to the print version

Optimal sensor placement for leakage detection and isolation in water distribution networks

OpenAIRE

Rosich Oliva, Albert; Sarrate Estruch, Ramon; Nejjari Akhi-Elarab, Fatiha

2012-01-01

In this paper, the problem of leakage detection and isolation in water distribution networks is addressed applying an optimal sensor placement methodology. The chosen technique is based on structural models and thus it is suitable to handle non-linear and large scale systems. A drawback of this technique arises when costs are assigned uniformly. A main contribution of this paper is the proposal of an iterative methodology that focuses on identifying essential sensors which ultimately leads to...

Energy efficient distributed cluster head scheduling scheme for two tiered wireless sensor network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Kannan

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Wireless Sensor Network (WSN provides a significant contribution in the emerging fields such as ambient intelligence and ubiquitous computing. In WSN, optimization and load balancing of network resources are critical concern to provide the intelligence for long duration. Since clustering the sensor nodes can significantly enhance overall system scalability and energy efficiency this paper presents a distributed cluster head scheduling (DCHS algorithm to achieve the network longevity in WSN. The major novelty of this work is that the network is divided into primary and secondary tiers based on received signal strength indication of sensor nodes from the base station. The proposed DCHS supports for two tier WSN architecture and gives suggestion to elect the cluster head nodes and gateway nodes for both primary and secondary tiers. The DCHS mechanism satisfies an ideal distribution of the cluster head among the sensor nodes and avoids frequent selection of cluster head, based on Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI and residual energy level of the sensor nodes. Since the RSSI is the key parameter for this paper, the practical experiment was conducted to measure RSSI value by using MSP430F149 processor and CC2500 transceiver. The measured RSSI values were given input to the event based simulator to test the DCHS mechanism. The real time experimental study validated the proposed scheme for various scenarios.

Chemical Gas Sensors for Aeronautic and Space Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, Gary W.; Chen, Liang-Yu; Neudeck, Philip G.; Knight, Dak; Liu, Chung-Chiun; Wu, Quing-Hai; Zhou, Huan-Jun

1997-01-01

Aeronautic and space applications require the development of chemical sensors with capabilities beyond those of commercially available sensors. Two areas of particular interest are safety monitoring and emission monitoring. In safety monitoring, detection of low concentrations of hydrogen at potentially low temperatures is important while for emission monitoring the detection of nitrogen oxides, hydrogen, hydrocarbons and oxygen is of interest. This paper discusses the needs of aeronautic and space applications and the point-contact sensor technology being developed to address these needs. The development of these sensors is based on progress in two types of technology: (1) Micromachining and microfabrication technology to fabricate miniaturized sensors. (2) The development of high temperature semiconductors, especially silicon carbide. The detection of each type of gas involves its own challenges in the fields of materials science and fabrication technology. The number of dual-use commercial applications of this microfabricated gas sensor technology make this general area of sensor development a field of significant interest.

A Review on Surface Stress-Based Miniaturized Piezoresistive SU-8 Polymeric Cantilever Sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Mathew, Ribu; Ravi Sankar, A.

2018-06-01

In the last decade, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) SU-8 polymeric cantilevers with piezoresistive readout combined with the advances in molecular recognition techniques have found versatile applications, especially in the field of chemical and biological sensing. Compared to conventional solid-state semiconductor-based piezoresistive cantilever sensors, SU-8 polymeric cantilevers have advantages in terms of better sensitivity along with reduced material and fabrication cost. In recent times, numerous researchers have investigated their potential as a sensing platform due to high performance-to-cost ratio of SU-8 polymer-based cantilever sensors. In this article, we critically review the design, fabrication, and performance aspects of surface stress-based piezoresistive SU-8 polymeric cantilever sensors. The evolution of surface stress-based piezoresistive cantilever sensors from solid-state semiconductor materials to polymers, especially SU-8 polymer, is discussed in detail. Theoretical principles of surface stress generation and their application in cantilever sensing technology are also devised. Variants of SU-8 polymeric cantilevers with different composition of materials in cantilever stacks are explained. Furthermore, the interdependence of the material selection, geometrical design parameters, and fabrication process of piezoresistive SU-8 polymeric cantilever sensors and their cumulative impact on the sensor response are also explained in detail. In addition to the design-, fabrication-, and performance-related factors, this article also describes various challenges in engineering SU-8 polymeric cantilevers as a universal sensing platform such as temperature and moisture vulnerability. This review article would serve as a guideline for researchers to understand specifics and functionality of surface stress-based piezoresistive SU-8 cantilever sensors.[Figure not available: see fulltext.

Distributed push-pull estimation for node localization in wireless sensor networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dang, Viet-Hung; Le Viet Duc, L Duc; Lee, Young-Koo; Lee, Sungyoung

A great deal of research achievements on localization in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has been obtained in recent years. Nevertheless, its interesting challenges in terms of cost-reduction, accuracy improvement, scalability, and distributed ability design have led to the development of a new

Collaborative Distributed Scheduling Approaches for Wireless Sensor Network

Science.gov (United States)

Niu, Jianjun; Deng, Zhidong

2009-01-01

Energy constraints restrict the lifetime of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with battery-powered nodes, which poses great challenges for their large scale application. In this paper, we propose a family of collaborative distributed scheduling approaches (CDSAs) based on the Markov process to reduce the energy consumption of a WSN. The family of CDSAs comprises of two approaches: a one-step collaborative distributed approach and a two-step collaborative distributed approach. The approaches enable nodes to learn the behavior information of its environment collaboratively and integrate sleep scheduling with transmission scheduling to reduce the energy consumption. We analyze the adaptability and practicality features of the CDSAs. The simulation results show that the two proposed approaches can effectively reduce nodes' energy consumption. Some other characteristics of the CDSAs like buffer occupation and packet delay are also analyzed in this paper. We evaluate CDSAs extensively on a 15-node WSN testbed. The test results show that the CDSAs conserve the energy effectively and are feasible for real WSNs. PMID:22408491

Estimation of Distributed Fermat-Point Location for Wireless Sensor Networking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yanuarius Teofilus Larosa

2011-04-01

Full Text Available This work presents a localization scheme for use in wireless sensor networks (WSNs that is based on a proposed connectivity-based RF localization strategy called the distributed Fermat-point location estimation algorithm (DFPLE. DFPLE applies triangle area of location estimation formed by intersections of three neighboring beacon nodes. The Fermat point is determined as the shortest path from three vertices of the triangle. The area of estimated location then refined using Fermat point to achieve minimum error in estimating sensor nodes location. DFPLE solves problems of large errors and poor performance encountered by localization schemes that are based on a bounding box algorithm. Performance analysis of a 200-node development environment reveals that, when the number of sensor nodes is below 150, the mean error decreases rapidly as the node density increases, and when the number of sensor nodes exceeds 170, the mean error remains below 1% as the node density increases. Second, when the number of beacon nodes is less than 60, normal nodes lack sufficient beacon nodes to enable their locations to be estimated. However, the mean error changes slightly as the number of beacon nodes increases above 60. Simulation results revealed that the proposed algorithm for estimating sensor positions is more accurate than existing algorithms, and improves upon conventional bounding box strategies.

Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor for Early Detection of Rocky Slopes Movements

Science.gov (United States)

Minardo, Aldo; Picarelli, Luciano; Coscetta, Agnese; Zeni, Giovanni; Esposito, Giuseppe; Sacchi, Marco; Matano, Fabio; Caccavale, Mauro; Luigi, Zeni

2014-05-01

Distributed optical fiber sensors have in recent years gained considerable attention in structural and environmental monitoring due to specific advantages that, apart from the classical advantages common to all optical fiber sensors such as immunity to electromagnetic interferences, high sensitivity, small size and possibility to be embedded into the structures, multiplexing and remote interrogation capabilities [1], offer the unique feature of allowing the exploitation of a telecommunication grade optical fiber cable as the sensing element to measure deformation and temperature profiles over very long distances. In particular, distributed optical fiber sensors based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) through the so-called Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis (BOTDA), allow to measure strain and temperature profiles up to tens of kilometers with a strain accuracy of ±10µɛ and a temperature accuracy of ±1°C [2]. They have already been successfully employed in the monitoring of large civil and geotechnical structures such as bridges, tunnels, dams, pipelines allowing to identify and localize any kind of failures that can occur during their construction and operation [3,4]. In this paper we present the application of BOTDA to the monitoring of movements in a rocky slope, showing how the sensing optical fiber cable is able to detect the formation and follow the growth of fractures, and to identify their location along the slope, as well. The experimental results have been achieved on a test field located in the area of Naples (Italy), where a single mode optical fiber sensing cable has been deployed along a yellow tuffs slope, by spot gluing the cable with epoxy adhesive. In order to assess the validity of the proposed approach, a few existing cracks have been artificially enlarged and the magnitude and location of the induced strain peaks have been clearly identified by the sensing device. It should be emphasized that, due to the distributed nature of the

Nanostructured Fiber Optic Cantilever Arrays and Hybrid MEMS Sensors for Chemical and Biological Detection, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Advancements in nano-/micro-scale sensor fabrication and molecular recognition surfaces offer promising opportunities to develop miniaturized hybrid fiber optic and...

Integrated sensor array for on-line monitoring micro bioreactors

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Krommenhoek, E.E.

2007-01-01

The “Fed��?batch on a chip��?��?project, which was carried out in close cooperation with the Technical University of Delft, aims to miniaturize and parallelize micro bioreactors suitable for on-line screening of micro-organisms. This thesis describes an electrochemical sensor array which has been

Disposable soft 3 axis force sensor for biomedical applications.

Science.gov (United States)

Chathuranga, Damith Suresh; Zhongkui Wang; Yohan Noh; Nanayakkara, Thrishantha; Hirai, Shinichi

2015-08-01

This paper proposes a new disposable soft 3D force sensor that can be used to calculate either force or displacement and vibrations. It uses three Hall Effect sensors orthogonally placed around a cylindrical beam made of silicon rubber. A niobium permanent magnet is inside the silicon. When a force is applied to the end of the cylinder, it is compressed and bent to the opposite side of the force displacing the magnet. This displacement causes change in the magnetic flux around the ratiomatric linear sensors (Hall Effect sensors). By analysing these changes, we calculate the force or displacement in three directions using a lookup table. This sensor can be used in minimal invasive surgery and haptic feedback applications. The cheap construction, bio-compatibility and ease of miniaturization are few advantages of this sensor. The sensor design, and its characterization are presented in this work.

Multi-channel electronically scanned cryogenic pressure sensor

Science.gov (United States)

Chapman, John J. (Inventor); Hopson, Purnell, Jr. (Inventor); Kruse, Nancy M. H. (Inventor)

1995-01-01

A miniature, multi-channel, electronically scanned pressure measuring device uses electrostatically bonded silicon dies in a multielement array. These dies are bonded at specific sites on a glass, prepatterned substrate. Thermal data is multiplexed and recorded on each individual pressure measuring diaphragm. The device functions in a cryogenic environment without the need of heaters to keep the sensor at constant temperatures.

A Comparison of Alternative Distributed Dynamic Cluster Formation Techniques for Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Gholami, Mohammad; Brennan, Robert W

2016-01-06

In this paper, we investigate alternative distributed clustering techniques for wireless sensor node tracking in an industrial environment. The research builds on extant work on wireless sensor node clustering by reporting on: (1) the development of a novel distributed management approach for tracking mobile nodes in an industrial wireless sensor network; and (2) an objective comparison of alternative cluster management approaches for wireless sensor networks. To perform this comparison, we focus on two main clustering approaches proposed in the literature: pre-defined clusters and ad hoc clusters. These approaches are compared in the context of their reconfigurability: more specifically, we investigate the trade-off between the cost and the effectiveness of competing strategies aimed at adapting to changes in the sensing environment. To support this work, we introduce three new metrics: a cost/efficiency measure, a performance measure, and a resource consumption measure. The results of our experiments show that ad hoc clusters adapt more readily to changes in the sensing environment, but this higher level of adaptability is at the cost of overall efficiency.

Reestablishment of radiographic kidney size in Miniature Schnauzer dogs.

Science.gov (United States)

Sohn, Jungmin; Yun, Sookyung; Lee, Jeosoon; Chang, Dongwoo; Choi, Mincheol; Yoon, Junghee

2017-01-10

Kidney size may be altered in renal diseases, and the detection of kidney size alteration has diagnostic and prognostic values. We hypothesized that radiographic kidney size, the kidney length to the second lumbar vertebra (L2) length ratio, in normal Miniature Schnauzer dogs may be overestimated due to their shorter vertebral length. This study was conducted to evaluate radiographic and ultrasonographic kidney size and L2 length in clinically normal Miniature Schnauzers and other dog breeds to evaluate the effect of vertebral length on radiographic kidney size and to reestablish radiographic kidney size in normal Miniature Schnauzers. Abdominal radiographs and ultrasonograms from 49 Miniature Schnauzers and 54 other breeds without clinical evidence of renal disease and lumbar vertebral abnormality were retrospectively evaluated. Radiographic kidney size, in the Miniature Schnauzer (3.31 ± 0.26) was significantly larger than that in other breeds (2.94 ± 0.27). Relative L2 length, the L2 length to width ratio, in the Miniature Schnauzer (1.11 ± 0.06) was significantly shorter than that in other breeds (1.21 ± 0.09). However, ultrasonographic kidney sizes, kidney length to aorta diameter ratios, were within or very close to normal range both in the Miniature Schnauzer (6.75 ± 0.67) and other breeds (7.16 ± 1.01). Thus, Miniature Schnauzer dogs have breed-specific short vertebrae and consequently a larger radiographic kidney size, which was greater than standard reference in normal adult dogs. Care should be taken when evaluating radiographic kidney size in Miniature Schnauzers to prevent falsely diagnosed renomegaly.

A new immersion sensor for rapid electrochemical determination of dissolved oxygen in liquid metals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Janke, D.; Schwerdtfeger, K.

1978-01-01

Development of a new solid electrolyte 'needle sensor' with ZrO 2 or ThO 2 electrolyte and metal-metal oxide reference mixture for the rapid determination of oxygen in steel melts. Details of the manufacture of the layer-structured, miniaturized probe. Test results of simultaneous measurements performed with the newly developed ZrO 2 needle sensor and the hitherto usual tubular sensor in iron melts at oxygen activities between 0.00005 and 0.030. (orig.) [de

Distributed k-Means Algorithm and Fuzzy c-Means Algorithm for Sensor Networks Based on Multiagent Consensus Theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Qin, Jiahu; Fu, Weiming; Gao, Huijun; Zheng, Wei Xing

2016-03-03

This paper is concerned with developing a distributed k-means algorithm and a distributed fuzzy c-means algorithm for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) where each node is equipped with sensors. The underlying topology of the WSN is supposed to be strongly connected. The consensus algorithm in multiagent consensus theory is utilized to exchange the measurement information of the sensors in WSN. To obtain a faster convergence speed as well as a higher possibility of having the global optimum, a distributed k-means++ algorithm is first proposed to find the initial centroids before executing the distributed k-means algorithm and the distributed fuzzy c-means algorithm. The proposed distributed k-means algorithm is capable of partitioning the data observed by the nodes into measure-dependent groups which have small in-group and large out-group distances, while the proposed distributed fuzzy c-means algorithm is capable of partitioning the data observed by the nodes into different measure-dependent groups with degrees of membership values ranging from 0 to 1. Simulation results show that the proposed distributed algorithms can achieve almost the same results as that given by the centralized clustering algorithms.

Micromachined Thin-Film Sensors for SOI-CMOS Co-Integration

Science.gov (United States)

Laconte, Jean; Flandre, D.; Raskin, Jean-Pierre

Co-integration of sensors with their associated electronics on a single silicon chip may provide many significant benefits regarding performance, reliability, miniaturization and process simplicity without significantly increasing the total cost. Micromachined Thin-Film Sensors for SOI-CMOS Co-integration covers the challenges and interests and demonstrates the successful co-integration of gas flow sensors on dielectric membrane, with their associated electronics, in CMOS-SOI technology. We firstly investigate the extraction of residual stress in thin layers and in their stacking and the release, in post-processing, of a 1 μm-thick robust and flat dielectric multilayered membrane using Tetramethyl Ammonium Hydroxide (TMAH) silicon micromachining solution.

Small Scaffolds, Big Potential: Developing Miniature Proteins as Therapeutic Agents.

Science.gov (United States)

Holub, Justin M

2017-09-01

Preclinical Research Miniature proteins are a class of oligopeptide characterized by their short sequence lengths and ability to adopt well-folded, three-dimensional structures. Because of their biomimetic nature and synthetic tractability, miniature proteins have been used to study a range of biochemical processes including fast protein folding, signal transduction, catalysis and molecular transport. Recently, miniature proteins have been gaining traction as potential therapeutic agents because their small size and ability to fold into defined tertiary structures facilitates their development as protein-based drugs. This research overview discusses emerging developments involving the use of miniature proteins as scaffolds to design novel therapeutics for the treatment and study of human disease. Specifically, this review will explore strategies to: (i) stabilize miniature protein tertiary structure; (ii) optimize biomolecular recognition by grafting functional epitopes onto miniature protein scaffolds; and (iii) enhance cytosolic delivery of miniature proteins through the use of cationic motifs that facilitate endosomal escape. These objectives are discussed not only to address challenges in developing effective miniature protein-based drugs, but also to highlight the tremendous potential miniature proteins hold for combating and understanding human disease. Drug Dev Res 78 : 268-282, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Miniaturized isothermal nucleic acid amplification, a review.

Science.gov (United States)

Asiello, Peter J; Baeumner, Antje J

2011-04-21

Micro-Total Analysis Systems (µTAS) for use in on-site rapid detection of DNA or RNA are increasingly being developed. Here, amplification of the target sequence is key to increasing sensitivity, enabling single-cell and few-copy nucleic acid detection. The several advantages to miniaturizing amplification reactions and coupling them with sample preparation and detection on the same chip are well known and include fewer manual steps, preventing contamination, and significantly reducing the volume of expensive reagents. To-date, the majority of miniaturized systems for nucleic acid analysis have used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for amplification and those systems are covered in previous reviews. This review provides a thorough overview of miniaturized analysis systems using alternatives to PCR, specifically isothermal amplification reactions. With no need for thermal cycling, isothermal microsystems can be designed to be simple and low-energy consuming and therefore may outperform PCR in portable, battery-operated detection systems in the future. The main isothermal methods as miniaturized systems reviewed here include nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA), loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), helicase-dependent amplification (HDA), rolling circle amplification (RCA), and strand displacement amplification (SDA). Also, important design criteria for the miniaturized devices are discussed. Finally, the potential of miniaturization of some new isothermal methods such as the exponential amplification reaction (EXPAR), isothermal and chimeric primer-initiated amplification of nucleic acids (ICANs), signal-mediated amplification of RNA technology (SMART) and others is presented.

Distributed transition-edge sensors for linearized position response in a phonon-mediated X-ray imaging spectrometer

Science.gov (United States)

Cabrera, Blas; Brink, Paul L.; Leman, Steven W.; Castle, Joseph P.; Tomada, Astrid; Young, Betty A.; Martínez-Galarce, Dennis S.; Stern, Robert A.; Deiker, Steve; Irwin, Kent D.

2004-03-01

For future solar X-ray satellite missions, we are developing a phonon-mediated macro-pixel composed of a Ge crystal absorber with four superconducting transition-edge sensors (TES) distributed on the backside. The X-rays are absorbed on the opposite side and the energy is converted into phonons, which are absorbed into the four TES sensors. By connecting together parallel elements into four channels, fractional total energy absorbed between two of the sensors provides x-position information and the other two provide y-position information. We determine the optimal distribution for the TES sub-elements to obtain linear position information while minimizing the degradation of energy resolution.

In situ corrosion monitoring of PC structures with distributed hybrid carbon fiber reinforced polymer sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, C. Q.; Wu, Z. S.

2007-08-01

Firstly, the fabrication and sensing properties of hybrid carbon fiber reinforced polymer (HCFRP) composite sensors are addressed. In order to provide a distributed sensing manner, the HCFRP sensors were divided into multi-zones with electrodes, and each zone was regarded as a separate sensor. Secondly, their application is studied to monitor the steel corrosion of prestressed concrete (PC) beams. The HCFRP sensors with different gauge lengths were mounted on a PC tendon, steel bar and embedded in tensile and compressive sides of the PC beam. The experiment was carried out under an electric accelerated corrosion and a constant load of about 54 kN. The results reveal that the corrosion of the PC tendon can be monitored through measuring the electrical resistance (ER) change of the HCFRP sensors. For the sensors embedded in tensile side of the PC beam, their ER increases as the corrosion progresses, whereas for the sensors embedded in compressive side, their ER decreases with corrosion time. Moreover, the strains due to the corrosion can be obtained based on the ER change and calibration curves of HCFRP sensors. The strains measured with traditional strain gauges agree with the strains calculated from the ER changes of HCFRP sensors. The electrical behavior of the zones where the corrosion was performed is much different from those of the other zones. In these zones, either there exist jumps in ER, or the ER increases with a much larger rate than those of the other zones. Distributed corrosion monitoring for PC structures is thus demonstrated with the application of HCFRP sensors through a proper installation of multi-electrodes.

Rad-Hard, Miniaturized, Scalable, High-Voltage Switching Module for Power Applications Rad-Hard, Miniaturized

Science.gov (United States)

Adell, Philippe C.; Mojarradi, Mohammad; DelCastillo, Linda Y.; Vo, Tuan A.

2011-01-01

A paper discusses the successful development of a miniaturized radiation hardened high-voltage switching module operating at 2.5 kV suitable for space application. The high-voltage architecture was designed, fabricated, and tested using a commercial process that uses a unique combination of 0.25 micrometer CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) transistors and high-voltage lateral DMOS (diffusion metal oxide semiconductor) device with high breakdown voltage (greater than 650 V). The high-voltage requirements are achieved by stacking a number of DMOS devices within one module, while two modules can be placed in series to achieve higher voltages. Besides the high-voltage requirements, a second generation prototype is currently being developed to provide improved switching capabilities (rise time and fall time for full range of target voltages and currents), the ability to scale the output voltage to a desired value with good accuracy (few percent) up to 10 kV, to cover a wide range of high-voltage applications. In addition, to ensure miniaturization, long life, and high reliability, the assemblies will require intensive high-voltage electrostatic modeling (optimized E-field distribution throughout the module) to complete the proposed packaging approach and test the applicability of using advanced materials in a space-like environment (temperature and pressure) to help prevent potential arcing and corona due to high field regions. Finally, a single-event effect evaluation would have to be performed and single-event mitigation methods implemented at the design and system level or developed to ensure complete radiation hardness of the module.

Distributed Fiber Optic Sensors For The Monitoring Of A Tunnel Crossing A Landslide

Science.gov (United States)

Minardo, Aldo; Picarelli, Luciano; Zeni, Giovanni; Catalano, Ester; Coscetta, Agnese; Zhang, Lei; DiMaio, Caterina; Vassallo, Roberto; Coviello, Roberto; Macchia, Giuseppe Nicola Paolo; Zeni, Luigi

2017-04-01

Optical fiber distributed sensors have recently gained great attention in structural and environmental monitoring due to specific advantages because they share all the classical advantages common to all optical fiber sensors such as immunity to electromagnetic interferences, high sensitivity, small size and possibility to be embedded into the structures, multiplexing and remote interrogation capabilities [1], but also offer the unique feature of allowing the exploitation of a telecommunication grade optical fiber cable as the sensing element to measure deformation and temperature profiles over long distances, without any added devices. In particular, distributed optical fiber sensors based on stimulated Brillouin scattering through the so-called Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis (BOTDA), allow to measure strain and temperature profiles up to tens of kilometers with a strain accuracy of ±10µɛ and a temperature accuracy of ±1°C. These sensors have already been employed in static and dynamic monitoring of a variety of structures resulting able to identify and localize many kind of failures [2,3,4]. This paper deals with the application of BOTDA to the monitoring of the deformations of a railway tunnel (200 m long) constructed in the accumulation of Varco d'Izzo earthflow, Potenza city, in the Southern Italian Apennine. The earthflow, which occurs in the tectonized clay shale formation called Varicoloured Clays, although very slow, causes continuous damage to buildings and infrastructures built upon or across it. The railway tunnel itself had to be re-constructed in 1992. Since then, the Italian National Railway monitored the structure by means of localized fissure-meters. Recently, thanks to a collaboration with the rail Infrastructure Manager (RFI), monitoring of various zones of the landslide including the tunnel is based on advanced systems, among which the optical fiber distributed sensors. First results show how the sensing optical fiber cable is able

MEMS sensors and wireless telemetry for distributed systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Britton, C.L. Jr.; Warmack, R.J.; Smith, S.F. [and others

1998-02-01

Selectively coated cantilevers are being developed at ORNL for chemical and biological sensing. The sensitivity can exceed that of other electro-mechanical devices as parts-per-trillion detection can be demonstrated for certain species. The authors are now proceeding to develop systems that employ electrically readable microcantilevers in a standard MEMS process and standard CMOS processes. One of their primary areas of interest is chemical sensing for environmental applications. Towards this end, they are presently developing electronic readout of a mercury-sensitive coated cantilever. In order to field arrays of distributed sensors, a wireless network for data reporting is needed. For this, the authors are developing on-chip spread-spectrum encoding and modulation circuitry to improve the robustness and security of sensor data in typical interference- and multipath-impaired environments. They have also provided for a selection of distinct spreading codes to serve groups of sensors in a common environment by the application of code-division multiple-access techniques. Most of the RF circuitry they have designed and fabricated in 0.5 {micro}m CMOS has been tested and verified operational to above 1 GHz. The initial intended operation is for use in the 915 MHz Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band. This paper presents measured data on the microcantilever-based mercury detector. They also present design data and measurements of the RF telemetry chip.

A miniature integrated multimodal sensor for measuring pH, EC and temperature for precision agriculture.

Science.gov (United States)

Futagawa, Masato; Iwasaki, Taichi; Murata, Hiroaki; Ishida, Makoto; Sawada, Kazuaki

2012-01-01

Making several simultaneous measurements with different kinds of sensors at the same location in a solution is difficult because of crosstalk between the sensors. In addition, because the conditions at different locations in plant beds differ, in situ measurements in agriculture need to be done in small localized areas. We have fabricated a multimodal sensor on a small Si chip in which a pH sensor was integrated with electrical conductivity (EC) and temperature sensors. An ISFET with a Si(3)N(4) membrane was used for the pH sensor. For the EC sensor, the electrical conductivity between platinum electrodes was measured, and the temperature sensor was a p-n junction diode. These are some of the most important measurements required for controlling the conditions in plant beds. The multimodal sensor can be inserted into a plant bed for in situ monitoring. To confirm the absence of crosstalk between the sensors, we made simultaneous measurements of pH, EC, and temperature of a pH buffer solution in a plant bed. When the solution was diluted with hot or cold water, the real time measurements showed changes to the EC and temperature, but no change in pH. We also demonstrated that our sensor was capable of simultaneous in situ measurements in rock wool without being affected by crosstalk.

Miniaturization in Biocatalysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pedro Fernandes

2010-03-01

Full Text Available The use of biocatalysts for the production of both consumer goods and building blocks for chemical synthesis is consistently gaining relevance. A significant contribution for recent advances towards further implementation of enzymes and whole cells is related to the developments in miniature reactor technology and insights into flow behavior. Due to the high level of parallelization and reduced requirements of chemicals, intensive screening of biocatalysts and process variables has become more feasible and reproducibility of the bioconversion processes has been substantially improved. The present work aims to provide an overview of the applications of miniaturized reactors in bioconversion processes, considering multi-well plates and microfluidic devices, update information on the engineering characterization of the hardware used, and present perspective developments in this area of research.

Tactile Sensor Array with Fiber Bragg Gratings in Quasi-Distributed Sensing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcelo A. Pedroso

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This work describes the development of a quasi-distributed real-time tactile sensing system with a reduced number of fiber Bragg grating-based sensors and reports its use with a reconstruction method based on differential evolution. The sensing system is comprised of six fiber Bragg gratings encapsulated in silicone elastomer to form a tactile sensor array with total dimensions of 60 × 80 mm, divided into eight sensing cells with dimensions of 20 × 30 mm. Forces applied at the central position of the sensor array resulted in linear response curves for the gratings, highlighting their coupled responses and allowing the application of compressive sensing. The reduced number of sensors regarding the number of sensing cells results in an undetermined inverse problem, solved with a compressive sensing algorithm with the aid of differential evolution method. The system is capable of identifying and quantifying up to four different loads at four different cells with relative errors lower than 10.5% and signal-to-noise ratio better than 12 dB.

Liquid storage of miniature boar semen.

Science.gov (United States)

Shimatsu, Yoshiki; Uchida, Masaki; Niki, Rikio; Imai, Hiroshi

2002-04-01

The effects of liquid storage at 15 degrees C on the fertilizing ability of miniature pig semen were investigated. Characterization of ejaculated semen from 3 miniature boars was carried out. Semen volume and pH were similar among these boars. In one of the boars, sperm motility was slightly low, and sperm concentration and total number of sperm were significantly lower than in the others (P semen was substituted with various extenders (Kiev, Androhep, BTS and Modena) by centrifugation and semen was stored for 7 days at 15 degrees C. Sperm motility was estimated daily at 37 degrees C. For complete substitution of seminal plasma, Modena was significantly more efficient than the other extenders (P Semen from each of the 3 miniature boars that had been stored for 5 to 7 days at 15 degrees C in Modena was used for artificial insemination of 15 miniature sows. The farrowing rates were 100, 100 and 60%, and litter sizes were 6.4 +/- 1.5, 5.8 +/- 0.8 and 5.0 +/- 1.0 for each boar semen, respectively. The boar that sired the smallest farrowing rate was the same one that showed lower seminal quality with respect to sperm motility, sperm concentration and total number of sperm. These results suggest that miniature boar semen can be stored for at least 5 days at 15 degrees C by the substitution of seminal plasma with Modena extender.

Integrated optical readout for miniaturization of cantilever-based sensor system

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nordström, Maria; Zauner, Dan; Calleja, Montserrat

2007-01-01

The authors present the fabrication and characterization of an integrated optical readout scheme based on single-mode waveguides for cantilever-based sensors. The cantilever bending is read out by monitoring changes in the optical intensity of light transmitted through the cantilever that also acts...

Six-axis force–torque sensor with a large range for biomechanical applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" data-affiliation=" (MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" >Brookhuis, R A; + Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" data-affiliation=" (MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" >Droogendijk, H; + Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" data-affiliation=" (MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" >De Boer, M J; + Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" data-affiliation=" (MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" >Sanders, R G P; + Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" data-affiliation=" (MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" >Lammerink, T S J; + Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" data-affiliation=" (MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" >Wiegerink, R J; + Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" data-affiliation=" (MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede (Netherlands))" >Krijnen, G J M

2014-01-01

A silicon six-axis force–torque sensor is designed and realized to be used for measurement of the power transfer between the human body and the environment. Capacitive read-out is used to detect all axial force components and all torque components simultaneously. Small electrode gaps in combination with mechanical amplification by the sensor structure result in a high sensitivity. The miniature sensor has a wide force range of up to 50 N in normal direction, 10 N in shear direction and 25 N mm of maximum torque around each axis. (paper)

Testing the impact of miniaturization on phylogeny: Paleozoic dissorophoid amphibians.

Science.gov (United States)

Fröbisch, Nadia B; Schoch, Rainer R

2009-06-01

Among the diverse clade of Paleozoic dissorophoid amphibians, the small, terrestrial amphibamids and the neotenic branchiosaurids have frequently been suggested as possible antecedents of either all or some of the modern amphibian clades. Classically, amphibamids and branchiosaurids have been considered to represent distinct, but closely related clades within dissorophoids, but despite their importance for the controversial lissamphibian origins, a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of small dissorophoids has thus far not been attempted. On the basis of an integrated data set, the relationships of amphibamids and branchiosaurids were analyzed using parsimony and Bayesian approaches. Both groups represent miniaturized forms and it was tested whether similar developmental pathways, associated with miniaturization, lead to an artificial close relationship of branchiosaurids and amphibamids. Moreover, the fit of the resulting tree topologies to the distribution of fossil taxa in the stratigraphic rock record was assessed as an additional source of information. The results show that characters associated with a miniaturized morphology are not responsible for the close clustering of branchiosaurids and amphibamids. Instead, all analyses invariably demonstrate a monophyletic clade of branchiosaurids highly nested within derived amphibamids, indicating that branchiosaurids represent a group of secondarily neotenic amphibamid dissorophoids. This understanding of the phylogenetic relationships of small dissorophoid amphibians provides a new framework for the discussion of their evolutionary history and the evolution of characters shared by branchiosaurids and/or amphibamids with modern amphibian taxa.

A Miniature Integrated Multimodal Sensor for Measuring pH, EC and Temperature for Precision Agriculture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hiroaki Murata

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Making several simultaneous measurements with different kinds of sensors at the same location in a solution is difficult because of crosstalk between the sensors. In addition, because the conditions at different locations in plant beds differ, in situ measurements in agriculture need to be done in small localized areas. We have fabricated a multimodal sensor on a small Si chip in which a pH sensor was integrated with electrical conductivity (EC and temperature sensors. An ISFET with a Si₃N₄ membrane was used for the pH sensor. For the EC sensor, the electrical conductivity between platinum electrodes was measured, and the temperature sensor was a p-n junction diode. These are some of the most important measurements required for controlling the conditions in plant beds. The multimodal sensor can be inserted into a plant bed for in situ monitoring. To confirm the absence of crosstalk between the sensors, we made simultaneous measurements of pH, EC, and temperature of a pH buffer solution in a plant bed. When the solution was diluted with hot or cold water, the real time measurements showed changes to the EC and temperature, but no change in pH. We also demonstrated that our sensor was capable of simultaneous in situ measurements in rock wool without being affected by crosstalk.

Miniaturized day/night sight in Soldato Futuro program

Science.gov (United States)

Landini, Alberto; Cocchi, Alessandro; Bardazzi, Riccardo; Sardelli, Mauro; Puntri, Stefano

2013-06-01

The market of the sights for the 5.56 mm assault rifles is dominated by mainly three types of systems: TWS (Thermal Weapon Sight), the Pocket Scope with Weapon Mount and the Clip-on. The latter are designed primarily for special forces and snipers use, while the TWS design is triggered mainly by the DRI (Detection, Recognition, Identification) requirements. The Pocket Scope design is focused on respecting the SWaP (Size, Weight and Power dissipation) requirements. Compared to the TWS systems, for the last two years there was a significant technological growth of the Pocket Scope/Weapon Mount solutions, concentrated on the compression of the overall dimensions. The trend for the assault rifles is the use of small size/light weight (SWaP) IR sights, suitable mainly for close combat operations but also for extraordinary use as pocket scopes - handheld or helmet mounted. The latest developments made by Selex ES S.p.A. are responding precisely to the above-mentioned trend, through a miniaturized Day/Night sight embedding state-of-the art sensors and using standard protocols (USB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0) for interfacing with PDAs, Wearable computers, etc., while maintaining the "shoot around the corner" capability. Indeed, inside the miniaturized Day/Night sight architecture, a wireless link using Bluetooth technology has been implemented to transmit the video streaming of the rifle sight to an helmet mounted display. The video of the rifle sight is transmitted only to the eye-piece of the soldier shouldering the rifle.

Parallel multi-join query optimization algorithm for distributed sensor network in the internet of things

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Yan

2015-03-01

Internet of things (IoT), focusing on providing users with information exchange and intelligent control, attracts a lot of attention of researchers from all over the world since the beginning of this century. IoT is consisted of large scale of sensor nodes and data processing units, and the most important features of IoT can be illustrated as energy confinement, efficient communication and high redundancy. With the sensor nodes increment, the communication efficiency and the available communication band width become bottle necks. Many research work is based on the instance which the number of joins is less. However, it is not proper to the increasing multi-join query in whole internet of things. To improve the communication efficiency between parallel units in the distributed sensor network, this paper proposed parallel query optimization algorithm based on distribution attributes cost graph. The storage information relations and the network communication cost are considered in this algorithm, and an optimized information changing rule is established. The experimental result shows that the algorithm has good performance, and it would effectively use the resource of each node in the distributed sensor network. Therefore, executive efficiency of multi-join query between different nodes could be improved.

Toward the Responsible Development and Commercialization of Sensor Nanotechnologies.

Science.gov (United States)

Fadel, Tarek R; Farrell, Dorothy F; Friedersdorf, Lisa E; Griep, Mark H; Hoover, Mark D; Meador, Michael A; Meyyappan, M

2016-01-01

Nanotechnology-enabled sensors (or nanosensors) will play an important role in enabling the progression toward ubiquitous information systems as the Internet of Things (IoT) emerges. Nanosensors offer new, miniaturized solutions in physiochemical and biological sensing that enable increased sensitivity, specificity, and multiplexing capability, all with the compelling economic drivers of low cost and high-energy efficiency. In the United States, Federal agencies participating in the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) "Nanotechnology for Sensors and Sensors for Nanotechnology: Improving and Protecting Health, Safety, and the Environment" Nanotechnology Signature Initiative (the Sensors NSI), address both the opportunity of using nanotechnology to advance sensor development and the challenges of developing sensors to keep pace with the increasingly widespread use of engineered nanomaterials. This perspective article will introduce and provide background on the NNI signature initiative on sensors. Recent efforts by the Sensors NSI aimed at promoting the successful development and commercialization of nanosensors will be reviewed and examples of sensor nanotechnologies will be highlighted. Future directions and critical challenges for sensor development will also be discussed.

Moving target tracking through distributed clustering in directional sensor networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Enayet, Asma; Razzaque, Md Abdur; Hassan, Mohammad Mehedi; Almogren, Ahmad; Alamri, Atif

2014-12-18

The problem of moving target tracking in directional sensor networks (DSNs) introduces new research challenges, including optimal selection of sensing and communication sectors of the directional sensor nodes, determination of the precise location of the target and an energy-efficient data collection mechanism. Existing solutions allow individual sensor nodes to detect the target's location through collaboration among neighboring nodes, where most of the sensors are activated and communicate with the sink. Therefore, they incur much overhead, loss of energy and reduced target tracking accuracy. In this paper, we have proposed a clustering algorithm, where distributed cluster heads coordinate their member nodes in optimizing the active sensing and communication directions of the nodes, precisely determining the target location by aggregating reported sensing data from multiple nodes and transferring the resultant location information to the sink. Thus, the proposed target tracking mechanism minimizes the sensing redundancy and maximizes the number of sleeping nodes in the network. We have also investigated the dynamic approach of activating sleeping nodes on-demand so that the moving target tracking accuracy can be enhanced while maximizing the network lifetime. We have carried out our extensive simulations in ns-3, and the results show that the proposed mechanism achieves higher performance compared to the state-of-the-art works.

Moving Target Tracking through Distributed Clustering in Directional Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Asma Enayet

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The problem of moving target tracking in directional sensor networks (DSNs introduces new research challenges, including optimal selection of sensing and communication sectors of the directional sensor nodes, determination of the precise location of the target and an energy-efficient data collection mechanism. Existing solutions allow individual sensor nodes to detect the target’s location through collaboration among neighboring nodes, where most of the sensors are activated and communicate with the sink. Therefore, they incur much overhead, loss of energy and reduced target tracking accuracy. In this paper, we have proposed a clustering algorithm, where distributed cluster heads coordinate their member nodes in optimizing the active sensing and communication directions of the nodes, precisely determining the target location by aggregating reported sensing data from multiple nodes and transferring the resultant location information to the sink. Thus, the proposed target tracking mechanism minimizes the sensing redundancy and maximizes the number of sleeping nodes in the network. We have also investigated the dynamic approach of activating sleeping nodes on-demand so that the moving target tracking accuracy can be enhanced while maximizing the network lifetime. We have carried out our extensive simulations in ns-3, and the results show that the proposed mechanism achieves higher performance compared to the state-of-the-art works.

Distributed sensor coordination for advanced energy systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tumer, Kagan [Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, OR (United States). School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

2015-03-12

Motivation: The ability to collect key system level information is critical to the safe, efficient and reliable operation of advanced power systems. Recent advances in sensor technology have enabled some level of decision making directly at the sensor level. However, coordinating large numbers of sensors, particularly heterogeneous sensors, to achieve system level objectives such as predicting plant efficiency, reducing downtime or predicting outages requires sophisticated coordination algorithms. Indeed, a critical issue in such systems is how to ensure the interaction of a large number of heterogenous system components do not interfere with one another and lead to undesirable behavior. Objectives and Contributions: The long-term objective of this work is to provide sensor deployment, coordination and networking algorithms for large numbers of sensors to ensure the safe, reliable, and robust operation of advanced energy systems. Our two specific objectives are to: 1. Derive sensor performance metrics for heterogeneous sensor networks. 2. Demonstrate effectiveness, scalability and reconfigurability of heterogeneous sensor network in advanced power systems. The key technical contribution of this work is to push the coordination step to the design of the objective functions of the sensors, allowing networks of heterogeneous sensors to be controlled. By ensuring that the control and coordination is not specific to particular sensor hardware, this approach enables the design and operation of large heterogeneous sensor networks. In addition to the coordination coordination mechanism, this approach allows the system to be reconfigured in response to changing needs (e.g., sudden external events requiring new responses) or changing sensor network characteristics (e.g., sudden changes to plant condition). Impact: The impact of this work extends to a large class of problems relevant to the National Energy Technology Laboratory including sensor placement, heterogeneous sensor

Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks for Advanced Soil Sensing and Ecosystem Monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Mollenhauer, Hannes; Schima, Robert; Remmler, Paul; Mollenhauer, Olaf; Hutschenreuther, Tino; Toepfer, Hannes; Dietrich, Peter; Bumberger, Jan

2015-04-01

For an adequate characterization of ecosystems it is necessary to detect individual processes with suitable monitoring strategies and methods. Due to the natural complexity of all environmental compartments, single point or temporally and spatially fixed measurements are mostly insufficient for an adequate representation. The application of mobile wireless sensor networks for soil and atmosphere sensing offers significant benefits, due to the simple adjustment of the sensor distribution, the sensor types and the sample rate (e.g. by using optimization approaches or event triggering modes) to the local test conditions. This can be essential for the monitoring of heterogeneous and dynamic environmental systems and processes. One significant advantage in the application of mobile ad-hoc wireless sensor networks is their self-organizing behavior. Thus, the network autonomously initializes and optimizes itself. Due to the localization via satellite a major reduction in installation and operation costs and time is generated. In addition, single point measurements with a sensor are significantly improved by measuring at several optimized points continuously. Since performing analog and digital signal processing and computation in the sensor nodes close to the sensors a significant reduction of the data to be transmitted can be achieved which leads to a better energy management of nodes. Furthermore, the miniaturization of the nodes and energy harvesting are current topics under investigation. First results of field measurements are given to present the potentials and limitations of this application in environmental science. In particular, collected in-situ data with numerous specific soil and atmosphere parameters per sensor node (more than 25) recorded over several days illustrates the high performance of this system for advanced soil sensing and soil-atmosphere interaction monitoring. Moreover, investigations of biotic and abiotic process interactions and optimization

Cantilever sensors: Nanomechanical tools for diagnostics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Datar, R.; Kim, S.; Jeon, S.

2009-01-01

Cantilever sensors have attracted considerable attention over the last decade because of their potential as a highly sensitive sensor platform for high throughput and multiplexed detection of proteins and nucleic acids. A micromachined cantilever platform integrates nanoscale science and microfab......Cantilever sensors have attracted considerable attention over the last decade because of their potential as a highly sensitive sensor platform for high throughput and multiplexed detection of proteins and nucleic acids. A micromachined cantilever platform integrates nanoscale science...... and microfabrication technology for the label-free detection of biological molecules, allowing miniaturization. Molecular adsorption, when restricted to a single side of a deformable cantilever beam, results in measurable bending of the cantilever. This nanoscale deflection is caused by a variation in the cantilever...... surface stress due to biomolecular interactions and can be measured by optical or electrical means, thereby reporting on the presence of biomolecules. Biological specificity in detection is typically achieved by immobilizing selective receptors or probe molecules on one side of the cantilever using...

Wireless Distributed Environmental Sensor Networks for Air Pollution Measurement-The Promise and the Current Reality.

Science.gov (United States)

Broday, David M

2017-10-02

The evaluation of the effects of air pollution on public health and human-wellbeing requires reliable data. Standard air quality monitoring stations provide accurate measurements of airborne pollutant levels, but, due to their sparse distribution, they cannot capture accurately the spatial variability of air pollutant concentrations within cities. Dedicated in-depth field campaigns have dense spatial coverage of the measurements but are held for relatively short time periods. Hence, their representativeness is limited. Moreover, the oftentimes integrated measurements represent time-averaged records. Recent advances in communication and sensor technologies enable the deployment of dense grids of Wireless Distributed Environmental Sensor Networks for air quality monitoring, yet their capability to capture urban-scale spatiotemporal pollutant patterns has not been thoroughly examined to date. Here, we summarize our studies on the practicalities of using data streams from sensor nodes for air quality measurement and the required methods to tune the results to different stakeholders and applications. We summarize the results from eight cities across Europe, five sensor technologies-three stationary (with one tested also while moving) and two personal sensor platforms, and eight ambient pollutants. Overall, few sensors showed an exceptional and consistent performance, which can shed light on the fine spatiotemporal urban variability of pollutant concentrations. Stationary sensor nodes were more reliable than personal nodes. In general, the sensor measurements tend to suffer from the interference of various environmental factors and require frequent calibrations. This calls for the development of suitable field calibration procedures, and several such in situ field calibrations are presented.

Distributed perfluorinated POF strain sensor using OTDR and OFDR techniques

Science.gov (United States)

Liehr, Sascha; Wendt, Mario; Krebber, Katerina

2009-10-01

This paper presents the latest advances in distributed strain sensing using perfluorinated (PF) polymer optical fibers (POF). Compared to previously introduced PMMA POF strain sensors, PF POF have the advantage of lower loss and therefore extended measurement length of more than 500 m at increased spatial resolution of 10 cm. It is shown that PF POF can measure strain distributed up to 100 %. The characteristic backscatter signature of this fiber type provides additional evaluation possibilities. We show that, by applying a cross-correlation algorithm to the backscatter signal, the distributed length change can be measured along the fiber. We also present, to our knowledge for the first time, incoherent Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) in POF to measure distributed reflections and loss along the fiber. The OFDR technique proves superior to existing OTDR techniques in measurement speed, resolution and potential instrument costs.

Optical and Electronic NOx Sensors for Applications in Mechatronics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Scott D. Wolter

2009-05-01

Full Text Available Current production and emerging NOx sensors based on optical and nanomaterials technologies are reviewed. In view of their potential applications in mechatronics, we compared the performance of: i Quantum cascade lasers (QCL based photoacoustic (PA systems; ii gold nanoparticles as catalytically active materials in field-effect transistor (FET sensors, and iii functionalized III-V semiconductor based devices. QCL-based PA sensors for NOx show a detection limit in the sub part-per-million range and are characterized by high selectivity and compact set-up. Electrochemically synthesized gold-nanoparticle FET sensors are able to monitor NOx in a concentration range from 50 to 200 parts per million and are suitable for miniaturization. Porphyrin-functionalized III-V semiconductor materials can be used for the fabrication of a reliable NOx sensor platform characterized by high conductivity, corrosion resistance, and strong surface state coupling.

Optical and Electronic NOx Sensors for Applications in Mechatronics

Science.gov (United States)

Di Franco, Cinzia; Elia, Angela; Spagnolo, Vincenzo; Scamarcio, Gaetano; Lugarà, Pietro Mario; Ieva, Eliana; Cioffi, Nicola; Torsi, Luisa; Bruno, Giovanni; Losurdo, Maria; Garcia, Michael A.; Wolter, Scott D.; Brown, April; Ricco, Mario

2009-01-01

Current production and emerging NOx sensors based on optical and nanomaterials technologies are reviewed. In view of their potential applications in mechatronics, we compared the performance of: i) Quantum cascade lasers (QCL) based photoacoustic (PA) systems; ii) gold nanoparticles as catalytically active materials in field-effect transistor (FET) sensors, and iii) functionalized III-V semiconductor based devices. QCL-based PA sensors for NOx show a detection limit in the sub part-per-million range and are characterized by high selectivity and compact set-up. Electrochemically synthesized gold-nanoparticle FET sensors are able to monitor NOx in a concentration range from 50 to 200 parts per million and are suitable for miniaturization. Porphyrin-functionalized III-V semiconductor materials can be used for the fabrication of a reliable NOx sensor platform characterized by high conductivity, corrosion resistance, and strong surface state coupling. PMID:22412315

Accurate and wide field of view MEMS-based sun sensor for industrial applications

OpenAIRE

Delgado, Francisco; Quero, J.M.; Garcia Ortega, Juan; López Tarrida, Cristina; Ortega Villasclaras, Pablo Rafael; Bermejo Broto, Sandra

2012-01-01

This paper describes the design, fabrication, sim- ulation, and experimental results of an improved miniaturized two-axis sun sensor for industrial applications, created by adapt- ing a technology used previously in satellite applications. The sensor for each axis is composed of six photodiodes integrated in a crystalline-silicon substrate and a layer of cover glass, which is used to protect the silicon and to hold the windows. The high preci...

Inhomogeneous Oxygen Vacancy Distribution in Semiconductor Gas Sensors: Formation, Migration and Determination on Gas Sensing Characteristics.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Jianqiao; Gao, Yinglin; Wu, Xu; Jin, Guohua; Zhai, Zhaoxia; Liu, Huan

2017-08-10

The density of oxygen vacancies in semiconductor gas sensors was often assumed to be identical throughout the grain in the numerical discussion of the gas-sensing mechanism of the devices. In contrast, the actual devices had grains with inhomogeneous distribution of oxygen vacancy under non-ideal conditions. This conflict between reality and discussion drove us to study the formation and migration of the oxygen defects in semiconductor grains. A model of the gradient-distributed oxygen vacancy was proposed based on the effects of cooling rate and re-annealing on semiconductive thin films. The model established the diffusion equations of oxygen vacancy according to the defect kinetics of diffusion and exclusion. We described that the steady-state and transient-state oxygen vacancy distributions, which were used to calculate the gas-sensing characteristics of the sensor resistance and response to reducing gases under two different conditions. The gradient-distributed oxygen vacancy model had the applications in simulating the sensor performances, such as the power law, the grain size effect and the effect of depletion layer width.

Inhomogeneous Oxygen Vacancy Distribution in Semiconductor Gas Sensors: Formation, Migration and Determination on Gas Sensing Characteristics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jianqiao Liu

2017-08-01

Full Text Available The density of oxygen vacancies in semiconductor gas sensors was often assumed to be identical throughout the grain in the numerical discussion of the gas-sensing mechanism of the devices. In contrast, the actual devices had grains with inhomogeneous distribution of oxygen vacancy under non-ideal conditions. This conflict between reality and discussion drove us to study the formation and migration of the oxygen defects in semiconductor grains. A model of the gradient-distributed oxygen vacancy was proposed based on the effects of cooling rate and re-annealing on semiconductive thin films. The model established the diffusion equations of oxygen vacancy according to the defect kinetics of diffusion and exclusion. We described that the steady-state and transient-state oxygen vacancy distributions, which were used to calculate the gas-sensing characteristics of the sensor resistance and response to reducing gases under two different conditions. The gradient-distributed oxygen vacancy model had the applications in simulating the sensor performances, such as the power law, the grain size effect and the effect of depletion layer width.

Fabrication of a miniature diamond grinding tool using a hybrid process of micro-EDM and co-deposition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Shun-Tong; Lai, Yun-Cheng; Liu, Ching-Chang

2008-01-01

A novel miniature diamond grinding tool usable for the precise micro-grinding of miniature parts is presented. A hybrid process that combines 'micro-EDM' with 'precision co-deposition' is proposed. The metal substrate is micro-EDMed to a 50 µm diameter and micro diamonds with 0–2 µm grains are 'electroformed' on the substrate surface, producing a miniature multilayered grinding tool. Nickel and diamond act as binders and cutters, respectively. A partition plate with an array of drilled holes is designed to ensure good convection in the electroforming solution. The dispersion of diamond grains and displacement of nickel ions are noticeably improved. A miniature funnel mould enables the diamond grains to converge towards the cathode to increase their deposition probability on the substrate, thereby improving their distribution on the substrate surface. A micro ZrO 2 ceramic ferrule is finely ground by the developed grinding tool and then yields a surface roughness of R a = 0.085 µm. The proposed approach is applied during the final machining process

Improving control and estimation for distributed parameter systems utilizing mobile actuator-sensor network.

Science.gov (United States)

Mu, Wenying; Cui, Baotong; Li, Wen; Jiang, Zhengxian

2014-07-01

This paper proposes a scheme for non-collocated moving actuating and sensing devices which is unitized for improving performance in distributed parameter systems. By Lyapunov stability theorem, each moving actuator/sensor agent velocity is obtained. To enhance state estimation of a spatially distributes process, two kinds of filters with consensus terms which penalize the disagreement of the estimates are considered. Both filters can result in the well-posedness of the collective dynamics of state errors and can converge to the plant state. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the effectiveness of such a moving actuator-sensor network in enhancing system performance and the consensus filters converge faster to the plant state when consensus terms are included. Copyright © 2014 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Distributed Routing Scheme for Energy Management in Solar Powered Sensor Networks

KAUST Repository

Dehwah, Ahmad H.

2017-10-11

Energy management is critical for solar-powered sensor networks. In this article, we consider data routing policies to optimize the energy in solar powered networks. Motivated by multipurpose sensor networks, the objective is to find the best network policy that maximizes the minimal energy among nodes in a sensor network, over a finite time horizon, given uncertain energy input forecasts. First, we derive the optimal policy in certain special cases using forward dynamic programming. We then introduce a greedy policy that is distributed and exhibits significantly lower complexity. When computationally feasible, we compare the performance of the optimal policy with the greedy policy. We also demonstrate the performance and computational complexity of the greedy policy over randomly simulated networks, and show that it yields results that are almost identical to the optimal policy, for greatly reduced worst-case computational costs and memory requirements. Finally, we demonstrate the implementation of the greedy policy on an experimental sensor network.

Wearable sensors: modalities, challenges, and prospects.

Science.gov (United States)

Heikenfeld, J; Jajack, A; Rogers, J; Gutruf, P; Tian, L; Pan, T; Li, R; Khine, M; Kim, J; Wang, J; Kim, J

2018-01-16

Wearable sensors have recently seen a large increase in both research and commercialization. However, success in wearable sensors has been a mix of both progress and setbacks. Most of commercial progress has been in smart adaptation of existing mechanical, electrical and optical methods of measuring the body. This adaptation has involved innovations in how to miniaturize sensing technologies, how to make them conformal and flexible, and in the development of companion software that increases the value of the measured data. However, chemical sensing modalities have experienced greater challenges in commercial adoption, especially for non-invasive chemical sensors. There have also been significant challenges in making significant fundamental improvements to existing mechanical, electrical, and optical sensing modalities, especially in improving their specificity of detection. Many of these challenges can be understood by appreciating the body's surface (skin) as more of an information barrier than as an information source. With a deeper understanding of the fundamental challenges faced for wearable sensors and of the state-of-the-art for wearable sensor technology, the roadmap becomes clearer for creating the next generation of innovations and breakthroughs.

Node-to-node field calibration of wireless distributed air pollution sensor network.

Science.gov (United States)

Kizel, Fadi; Etzion, Yael; Shafran-Nathan, Rakefet; Levy, Ilan; Fishbain, Barak; Bartonova, Alena; Broday, David M

2018-02-01

Low-cost air quality sensors offer high-resolution spatiotemporal measurements that can be used for air resources management and exposure estimation. Yet, such sensors require frequent calibration to provide reliable data, since even after a laboratory calibration they might not report correct values when they are deployed in the field, due to interference with other pollutants, as a result of sensitivity to environmental conditions and due to sensor aging and drift. Field calibration has been suggested as a means for overcoming these limitations, with the common strategy involving periodical collocations of the sensors at an air quality monitoring station. However, the cost and complexity involved in relocating numerous sensor nodes back and forth, and the loss of data during the repeated calibration periods make this strategy inefficient. This work examines an alternative approach, a node-to-node (N2N) calibration, where only one sensor in each chain is directly calibrated against the reference measurements and the rest of the sensors are calibrated sequentially one against the other while they are deployed and collocated in pairs. The calibration can be performed multiple times as a routine procedure. This procedure minimizes the total number of sensor relocations, and enables calibration while simultaneously collecting data at the deployment sites. We studied N2N chain calibration and the propagation of the calibration error analytically, computationally and experimentally. The in-situ N2N calibration is shown to be generic and applicable for different pollutants, sensing technologies, sensor platforms, chain lengths, and sensor order within the chain. In particular, we show that chain calibration of three nodes, each calibrated for a week, propagate calibration errors that are similar to those found in direct field calibration. Hence, N2N calibration is shown to be suitable for calibration of distributed sensor networks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All

Collaborative Distributed Scheduling Approaches for Wireless Sensor Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhidong Deng

2009-10-01

Full Text Available Energy constraints restrict the lifetime of wireless sensor networks (WSNs with battery-powered nodes, which poses great challenges for their large scale application. In this paper, we propose a family of collaborative distributed scheduling approaches (CDSAs based on the Markov process to reduce the energy consumption of a WSN. The family of CDSAs comprises of two approaches: a one-step collaborative distributed approach and a two-step collaborative distributed approach. The approaches enable nodes to learn the behavior information of its environment collaboratively and integrate sleep scheduling with transmission scheduling to reduce the energy consumption. We analyze the adaptability and practicality features of the CDSAs. The simulation results show that the two proposed approaches can effectively reduce nodes’ energy consumption. Some other characteristics of the CDSAs like buffer occupation and packet delay are also analyzed in this paper. We evaluate CDSAs extensively on a 15-node WSN testbed. The test results show that the CDSAs conserve the energy effectively and are feasible for real WSNs.

Temperature monitoring and leak detection in sodium circuits of FBR using Raman distributed fiber optic sensor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kasinathan, M.; Murali, N.; Sosamma, S.; Babu Rao, C.; Kumar, Anish; Purnachandra Rao, B.; Jayakumar, T.

2013-01-01

This paper discusses the fiber optic temperature sensor based leak detection in the coolant circuits of fast breeder reactor. These sensors measure the temperature based on spontaneous Raman scattering principle and is not influenced by the electromagnetic interference. Various experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of the fiber optic sensor based leak detection using Raman distributed Temperature Sensor (RDTS). This paper also deals with the details of fiber optic sensor type leak detector layout for the coolant circuit of FBR, performance requirement of leak detection system, description of the test facility, experimental procedure and test results of various experiments conducted. (author)

Integration of Low-Power ASIC and MEMS Sensors for Monitoring Gastrointestinal Tract Using a Wireless Capsule System.

Science.gov (United States)

Arefin, Md Shamsul; Redoute, Jean-Michel; Yuce, Mehmet Rasit

2018-01-01

This paper presents a wireless capsule microsystem to detect and monitor the pH, pressure, and temperature of the gastrointestinal tract in real time. This research contributes to the integration of sensors (microfabricated capacitive pH, capacitive pressure, and resistive temperature sensors), frequency modulation and pulse width modulation based interface IC circuits, microcontroller, and transceiver with meandered conformal antenna for the development of a capsule system. The challenges associated with the system miniaturization, higher sensitivity and resolution of sensors, and lower power consumption of interface circuits are addressed. The layout, PCB design, and packaging of a miniaturized wireless capsule, having diameter of 13 mm and length of 28 mm, have successfully been implemented. A data receiver and recorder system is also designed to receive physiological data from the wireless capsule and to send it to a computer for real-time display and recording. Experiments are performed in vitro using a stomach model and minced pork as tissue simulating material. The real-time measurements also validate the suitability of sensors, interface circuits, and meandered antenna for wireless capsule applications.

Distributed detection in UWB sensor networks under non-orthogonal Nakagami-m fading

KAUST Repository

Mehbodniya, Abolfazl; Bielefeld, Daniel; Aissa, Sonia; Mathar, Rudolf; Adachi, Fumiyuki

2011-01-01

. In this paper, we present an opportunistic power assignment strategy for distributed detection in parallel fusion WSNs, considering a Nakagami-m fading model for the communication channel and time-hopping (TH) UWB for the transmitter circuit of the sensor nodes

Distributed Sleep Scheduling in Wireless Sensor Networks via Fractional Domatic Partitioning

Science.gov (United States)

Schumacher, André; Haanpää, Harri

We consider setting up sleep scheduling in sensor networks. We formulate the problem as an instance of the fractional domatic partition problem and obtain a distributed approximation algorithm by applying linear programming approximation techniques. Our algorithm is an application of the Garg-Könemann (GK) scheme that requires solving an instance of the minimum weight dominating set (MWDS) problem as a subroutine. Our two main contributions are a distributed implementation of the GK scheme for the sleep-scheduling problem and a novel asynchronous distributed algorithm for approximating MWDS based on a primal-dual analysis of Chvátal's set-cover algorithm. We evaluate our algorithm with ns2 simulations.

An Ultralow Power Fast-Response Nano-TCD CH4 sensor for UAV Airborne Measurements, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — In this project, KWJ proposes to develop a low power, fast response, lightweight miniature CH4 measurement system based on KWJ nano-TCD sensor for airborne...

The Localized Discovery and Recovery for Query Packet Losses in Wireless Sensor Networks with Distributed Detector Clusters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ryu Miura

2013-06-01

Full Text Available An essential application of wireless sensor networks is to successfully respond to user queries. Query packet losses occur in the query dissemination due to wireless communication problems such as interference, multipath fading, packet collisions, etc. The losses of query messages at sensor nodes result in the failure of sensor nodes reporting the requested data. Hence, the reliable and successful dissemination of query messages to sensor nodes is a non-trivial problem. The target of this paper is to enable highly successful query delivery to sensor nodes by localized and energy-efficient discovery, and recovery of query losses. We adopt local and collective cooperation among sensor nodes to increase the success rate of distributed discoveries and recoveries. To enable the scalability in the operations of discoveries and recoveries, we employ a distributed name resolution mechanism at each sensor node to allow sensor nodes to self-detect the correlated queries and query losses, and then efficiently locally respond to the query losses. We prove that the collective discovery of query losses has a high impact on the success of query dissemination and reveal that scalability can be achieved by using the proposed approach. We further study the novel features of the cooperation and competition in the collective recovery at PHY and MAC layers, and show that the appropriate number of detectors can achieve optimal successful recovery rate. We evaluate the proposed approach with both mathematical analyses and computer simulations. The proposed approach enables a high rate of successful delivery of query messages and it results in short route lengths to recover from query losses. The proposed approach is scalable and operates in a fully distributed manner.

A miniature low-cost LWIR camera with a 160×120 microbolometer FPA

Science.gov (United States)

Tepegoz, Murat; Kucukkomurler, Alper; Tankut, Firat; Eminoglu, Selim; Akin, Tayfun

2014-06-01

This paper presents the development of a miniature LWIR thermal camera, MSE070D, which targets value performance infrared imaging applications, where a 160x120 CMOS-based microbolometer FPA is utilized. MSE070D features a universal USB interface that can communicate with computers and some particular mobile devices in the market. In addition, it offers high flexibility and mobility with the help of its USB powered nature, eliminating the need for any external power source, thanks to its low-power requirement option. MSE070D provides thermal imaging with its 1.65 inch3 volume with the use of a vacuum packaged CMOS-based microbolometer type thermal sensor MS1670A-VP, achieving moderate performance with a very low production cost. MSE070D allows 30 fps thermal video imaging with the 160x120 FPA size while resulting in an NETD lower than 350 mK with f/1 optics. It is possible to obtain test electronics and software, miniature camera cores, complete Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and relevant documentation with MSE070D, as MikroSens want to help its customers to evaluate its products and to ensure quick time-to-market for systems manufacturers.

Ultrahigh Temperature Capacitive Pressure Sensor

Science.gov (United States)

Harsh, Kevin

2014-01-01

Robust, miniaturized sensing systems are needed to improve performance, increase efficiency, and track system health status and failure modes of advanced propulsion systems. Because microsensors must operate in extremely harsh environments, there are many technical challenges involved in developing reliable systems. In addition to high temperatures and pressures, sensing systems are exposed to oxidation, corrosion, thermal shock, fatigue, fouling, and abrasive wear. In these harsh conditions, sensors must be able to withstand high flow rates, vibration, jet fuel, and exhaust. In order for existing and future aeropropulsion turbine engines to improve safety and reduce cost and emissions while controlling engine instabilities, more accurate and complete sensor information is necessary. High-temperature (300 to 1,350 C) capacitive pressure sensors are of particular interest due to their high measurement bandwidth and inherent suitability for wireless readout schemes. The objective of this project is to develop a capacitive pressure sensor based on silicon carbon nitride (SiCN), a new class of high-temperature ceramic materials, which possesses excellent mechanical and electric properties at temperatures up to 1,600 C.

Development of a smart home simulator for use as a heuristic tool for management of sensor distribution.

Science.gov (United States)

Poland, Michael P; Nugent, Chris D; Wang, Hui; Chen, Liming

2009-01-01

Smart Homes offer potential solutions for various forms of independent living for the elderly. The assistive and protective environment afforded by smart homes offer a safe, relatively inexpensive, dependable and viable alternative to vulnerable inhabitants. Nevertheless, the success of a smart home rests upon the quality of information its decision support system receives and this in turn places great importance on the issue of correct sensor deployment. In this article we present a software tool that has been developed to address the elusive issue of sensor distribution within smart homes. Details of the tool will be presented and it will be shown how it can be used to emulate any real world environment whereby virtual sensor distributions can be rapidly implemented and assessed without the requirement for physical deployment for evaluation. As such, this approach offers the potential of tailoring sensor distributions to the specific needs of a patient in a non-evasive manner. The heuristics based tool presented here has been developed as the first part of a three stage project.

Distributed pressure sensors for a urethral catheter.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahmadi, Mahdi; Rajamani, Rajesh; Timm, Gerald; Sezen, A S

2015-01-01

A flexible strip that incorporates multiple pressure sensors and is capable of being fixed to a urethral catheter is developed. The urethral catheter thus instrumented will be useful for measurement of pressure in a human urethra during urodynamic testing in a clinic. This would help diagnose the causes of urinary incontinence in patients. Capacitive pressure sensors are fabricated on a flexible polyimide-copper substrate using surface micromachining processes and alignment/assembly of the top and bottom portions of the sensor strip. The developed sensor strip is experimentally evaluated in an in vitro test rig using a pressure chamber. The sensor strip is shown to have adequate sensitivity and repeatability. While the calibration factors for the sensors on the strip vary from one sensor to another, even the least sensitive sensor has a resolution better than 0.1 psi.

Magnetic micropillar sensors for force sensing

KAUST Repository

Alfadhel, Ahmed

2015-04-13

A force sensor system consisting of bioinspired, magnetic and highly elastic micropillars integrated on a magnetic field sensing element is reported. The micro-pillars are made of a nanocomposite consisting of magnetic nanowires incorporated into polydimethylsiloxane. The permanent magnetic behavior of the nanowires allows remote operation without an additional magnetic field to magnetize the nanowires, which simplifies miniaturization and system integration. We demonstrate the potential of this concept by realizing a tactile sensing element. The developed sensor element operates at power consumption of 75 μW and has a detection range between 0–120 kPa and a resolution of 2.7 kPa, which can easily be tuned in a wide range.

Magnetic micropillar sensors for force sensing

KAUST Repository

Alfadhel, Ahmed; Kosel, Jü rgen

2015-01-01

A force sensor system consisting of bioinspired, magnetic and highly elastic micropillars integrated on a magnetic field sensing element is reported. The micro-pillars are made of a nanocomposite consisting of magnetic nanowires incorporated into polydimethylsiloxane. The permanent magnetic behavior of the nanowires allows remote operation without an additional magnetic field to magnetize the nanowires, which simplifies miniaturization and system integration. We demonstrate the potential of this concept by realizing a tactile sensing element. The developed sensor element operates at power consumption of 75 μW and has a detection range between 0–120 kPa and a resolution of 2.7 kPa, which can easily be tuned in a wide range.

A miniature CSTR cascade for continuous flow of reactions containing solids

OpenAIRE

Mo, Yiming; Jensen, Klavs F

2016-01-01

Continuous handling of solids creates challenges for realizing continuous production of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals. We present a new miniature continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR) cascade to handle solid-forming reactions in flow. Single-phase residence time distribution (RTD) measurements of the CSTR cascade reveal nearly ideal CSTR mixing behavior of the individual units. Consistency of experimental and predicted conversions of a Diels–Alder reaction further confirms the CSTR perf...

TAMOAS: In Situ Gasometry in the Atmosphere with Solid Electrolyte Sensors on BEXUS-19

Science.gov (United States)

Bronowski, A.; Clemens, R.; Jaster, T.; Kosel, F.; Matyash, I.; Westphal, A.

2015-09-01

A student experiment developed for testing gas sensors in the stratosphere is described. The setup consists of a measurement electronic running miniaturized in situ amperiometric gas sensors based on different solid state electrolytes dedicated for oxygen, ozone and atomic oxygen. The experiment took place at Esrange Space Center in October 2014. The setup was attached to the high-altitude balloon BEXUS-19 and reached an altitude of 27 km at night. The primary objective was to test the prototype sensors and to gain data during flight.

Miniaturized GPS/MEMS IMU integrated board

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Ching-Fang (Inventor)

2012-01-01

This invention documents the efforts on the research and development of a miniaturized GPS/MEMS IMU integrated navigation system. A miniaturized GPS/MEMS IMU integrated navigation system is presented; Laser Dynamic Range Imager (LDRI) based alignment algorithm for space applications is discussed. Two navigation cameras are also included to measure the range and range rate which can be integrated into the GPS/MEMS IMU system to enhance the navigation solution.

High Accuracy, Miniature Pressure Sensor for Very High Temperatures, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — SiWave proposes to develop a compact, low-cost MEMS-based pressure sensor for very high temperatures and low pressures in hypersonic wind tunnels. Most currently...

Miniaturizing RFID for magnamosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Hao; Chen, Shijie; Kish, Shad; Loh, Lokkee; Zhang, Junmin; Zhang, Xiaorong; Kwiat, Dillon; Harrison, Michael; Roy, Shuvo

2014-01-01

Anastomosis is a common surgical procedure using staples or sutures in an open or laparoscopic surgery. A more effective and much less invasive alternative is to apply the mechanical pressure on the tissue over a few days [1]. Since the pressure is produced by the attractive force between two permanent magnets, the procedure is called magnamosis[1]. To ensure the two magnets are perfectly aligned during the surgery, a miniaturized batteryless Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) tag is developed to wirelessly telemeter the status of a pressure sensitive mechanical switch. Using the multi-layer circular spiral coil design, the diameter of the RFID tag is shrunk to 10, 15, 19 and 27 mm to support the magnamosis for children as well as adults. With the impedance matching network, the operating distance of these four RFID tags are longer than 10 cm in a 20 × 22 cm(2) area, even when the tag's normal direction is 45° off the antenna's normal direction. Measurement results also indicate that there is no noticeable degradation on the operating distance when the tag is immersed in saline or placed next to the rare-earth magnet. The miniaturized RFID tag presented in this paper is able to support the magnamosis and other medical applications that require the miniaturized RFID tag.

Stabilizing operation point technique based on the tunable distributed feedback laser for interferometric sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Mao, Xuefeng; Zhou, Xinlei; Yu, Qingxu

2016-02-01

We describe a stabilizing operation point technique based on the tunable Distributed Feedback (DFB) laser for quadrature demodulation of interferometric sensors. By introducing automatic lock quadrature point and wavelength periodically tuning compensation into an interferometric system, the operation point of interferometric system is stabilized when the system suffers various environmental perturbations. To demonstrate the feasibility of this stabilizing operation point technique, experiments have been performed using a tunable-DFB-laser as light source to interrogate an extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric vibration sensor and a diaphragm-based acoustic sensor. Experimental results show that good tracing of Q-point was effectively realized.

Secure Distributed Detection under Energy Constraint in IoT-Oriented Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guomei Zhang

2016-12-01

Full Text Available We study the secure distributed detection problems under energy constraint for IoT-oriented sensor networks. The conventional channel-aware encryption (CAE is an efficient physical-layer secure distributed detection scheme in light of its energy efficiency, good scalability and robustness over diverse eavesdropping scenarios. However, in the CAE scheme, it remains an open problem of how to optimize the key thresholds for the estimated channel gain, which are used to determine the sensor’s reporting action. Moreover, the CAE scheme does not jointly consider the accuracy of local detection results in determining whether to stay dormant for a sensor. To solve these problems, we first analyze the error probability and derive the optimal thresholds in the CAE scheme under a specified energy constraint. These results build a convenient mathematic framework for our further innovative design. Under this framework, we propose a hybrid secure distributed detection scheme. Our proposal can satisfy the energy constraint by keeping some sensors inactive according to the local detection confidence level, which is characterized by likelihood ratio. In the meanwhile, the security is guaranteed through randomly flipping the local decisions forwarded to the fusion center based on the channel amplitude. We further optimize the key parameters of our hybrid scheme, including two local decision thresholds and one channel comparison threshold. Performance evaluation results demonstrate that our hybrid scheme outperforms the CAE under stringent energy constraints, especially in the high signal-to-noise ratio scenario, while the security is still assured.

Radar-to-Radar Interference Suppression for Distributed Radar Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wen-Qin Wang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Radar sensor networks, including bi- and multi-static radars, provide several operational advantages, like reduced vulnerability, good system flexibility and an increased radar cross-section. However, radar-to-radar interference suppression is a major problem in distributed radar sensor networks. In this paper, we present a cross-matched filtering-based radar-to-radar interference suppression algorithm. This algorithm first uses an iterative filtering algorithm to suppress the radar-to-radar interferences and, then, separately matched filtering for each radar. Besides the detailed algorithm derivation, extensive numerical simulation examples are performed with the down-chirp and up-chirp waveforms, partially overlapped or inverse chirp rate linearly frequency modulation (LFM waveforms and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ODFM chirp diverse waveforms. The effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by the simulation results.

Remote Left Ventricular Hemodynamic Monitoring Using a Novel Intracardiac Sensor.

Science.gov (United States)

Mondritzki, Thomas; Boehme, Philip; White, Jason; Park, Jin Woo; Hoffmann, Jessica; Vogel, Julia; Kolkhof, Peter; Walsh, Stuart; Sandner, Peter; Bischoff, Erwin; Dinh, Wilfried; Hüser, Jörg; Truebel, Hubert

2018-05-01

Heart failure (HF) remains the most common reason for hospital admission in patients aged >65 years. Despite modern drug therapy, mortality and readmission rates for patients hospitalized with HF remain high. This necessitates further research to identify early patients at risk for readmission to limit hospitalization by timely adjustment of medical therapy. Implantable devices can monitor left ventricular (LV) hemodynamics and remotely and continuously detect the early signs of decompensation to trigger interventions and reduce the risk of hospitalization for HF. Here, we report the first preclinical study validating a new batteryless and easy to implant LV-microelectromechanical system to assess LV performance. A miniaturized implantable wireless pressure sensor was adapted for implantation in the LV apex. The LV-microelectromechanical system sensor was tested in a canine model of HF. The wireless pressure sensor measurements were compared with invasive left heart catheter-derived measurements at several time points. During different pharmacological challenge studies with dobutamine or vasopressin, the device was equally sensitive compared with invasive standard procedures. No adverse events or any observable reaction related to the implantation and application of the device for a period of 35 days was observed. Our miniaturized wireless pressure sensor placed in the LV (LV-microelectromechanical system) has the potential to become a new telemetric tool to earlier identify patients at risk for HF decompensation and to guide the treatment of patients with HF. © 2018 American Heart Association, Inc.

Wearable Sensor Localization Considering Mixed Distributed Sources in Health Monitoring Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Wan, Liangtian; Han, Guangjie; Wang, Hao; Shu, Lei; Feng, Nanxing; Peng, Bao

2016-03-12

In health monitoring systems, the base station (BS) and the wearable sensors communicate with each other to construct a virtual multiple input and multiple output (VMIMO) system. In real applications, the signal that the BS received is a distributed source because of the scattering, reflection, diffraction and refraction in the propagation path. In this paper, a 2D direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation algorithm for incoherently-distributed (ID) and coherently-distributed (CD) sources is proposed based on multiple VMIMO systems. ID and CD sources are separated through the second-order blind identification (SOBI) algorithm. The traditional estimating signal parameters via the rotational invariance technique (ESPRIT)-based algorithm is valid only for one-dimensional (1D) DOA estimation for the ID source. By constructing the signal subspace, two rotational invariant relationships are constructed. Then, we extend the ESPRIT to estimate 2D DOAs for ID sources. For DOA estimation of CD sources, two rational invariance relationships are constructed based on the application of generalized steering vectors (GSVs). Then, the ESPRIT-based algorithm is used for estimating the eigenvalues of two rational invariance matrices, which contain the angular parameters. The expressions of azimuth and elevation for ID and CD sources have closed forms, which means that the spectrum peak searching is avoided. Therefore, compared to the traditional 2D DOA estimation algorithms, the proposed algorithm imposes significantly low computational complexity. The intersecting point of two rays, which come from two different directions measured by two uniform rectangle arrays (URA), can be regarded as the location of the biosensor (wearable sensor). Three BSs adopting the smart antenna (SA) technique cooperate with each other to locate the wearable sensors using the angulation positioning method. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Electromigration driven failures on miniature silver fuses at the Large Hadron Collider

CERN Document Server

Trikoupis, Nikolaos; Perez Fontenla, Ana Teresa

2017-01-01

Spurious faults were observed on the miniature silver fuses of electronic cards used for the cryogenics instrumentation in the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) accelerator at CERN. By applying analytical tools and techniques such as Scanning Electron Microscopy, spectrometry and Weibull reliability calculations and by the knowledge of operating temperatures and operational time of each unit, the origin of the problem has now been understood and can be attributed to electromigration. The selected fuse was operated at moderate temperature and load conditions and was considered as a “lifetime” component. However, it turned out to have a smaller than expected MTTF with failures following a Weibull distribution of $\\beta = 3.91$ and $\\eta = 2323$. The literature describes extensively the effects of electromigration, but there are only limited references referring to the impact of this phenomenon on miniature silver fuses for electronic circuits.

Distributed Event-Based Set-Membership Filtering for a Class of Nonlinear Systems With Sensor Saturations Over Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Lifeng; Wang, Zidong; Lam, Hak-Keung; Kyriakoulis, Nikos

2017-11-01

In this paper, the distributed set-membership filtering problem is investigated for a class of discrete time-varying system with an event-based communication mechanism over sensor networks. The system under consideration is subject to sector-bounded nonlinearity, unknown but bounded noises and sensor saturations. Each intelligent sensing node transmits the data to its neighbors only when certain triggering condition is violated. By means of a set of recursive matrix inequalities, sufficient conditions are derived for the existence of the desired distributed event-based filter which is capable of confining the system state in certain ellipsoidal regions centered at the estimates. Within the established theoretical framework, two additional optimization problems are formulated: one is to seek the minimal ellipsoids (in the sense of matrix trace) for the best filtering performance, and the other is to maximize the triggering threshold so as to reduce the triggering frequency with satisfactory filtering performance. A numerically attractive chaos algorithm is employed to solve the optimization problems. Finally, an illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed algorithm.

A Low Noise CMOS Readout Based on a Polymer-Coated SAW Array for Miniature Electronic Nose

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cheng-Chun Wu

2016-10-01

Full Text Available An electronic nose (E-Nose is one of the applications for surface acoustic wave (SAW sensors. In this paper, we present a low-noise complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS readout application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC based on an SAW sensor array for achieving a miniature E-Nose. The center frequency of the SAW sensors was measured to be approximately 114 MHz. Because of interference between the sensors, we designed a low-noise CMOS frequency readout circuit to enable the SAW sensor to obtain frequency variation. The proposed circuit was fabricated in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC 0.18 μm 1P6M CMOS process technology. The total chip size was nearly 1203 × 1203 μm2. The chip was operated at a supply voltage of 1 V for a digital circuit and 1.8 V for an analog circuit. The least measurable difference between frequencies was 4 Hz. The detection limit of the system, when estimated using methanol and ethanol, was 0.1 ppm. Their linearity was in the range of 0.1 to 26,000 ppm. The power consumption levels of the analog and digital circuits were 1.742 mW and 761 μW, respectively.

A Miniaturized Carbon Dioxide Gas Sensor Based on Sensing of pH-Sensitive Hydrogel Swelling with a Pressure Sensor

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Herber, S.; Bomer, Johan G.; Olthuis, Wouter; Bergveld, Piet; van den Berg, Albert

2005-01-01

A measurement concept has been realized for the detection of carbon dioxide, where the CO2 induced pressure generation by an enclosed pH-sensitive hydrogel is measured with a micro pressure sensor. The application of the sensor is the quantification of the partial pressure of CO2 (Pco2) in the

The Application of Metal Oxide Nanomaterials for Chemical Sensor Development

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Jennifer C.; Hunter, Gary W.; Evans, Laura J.; VanderWal, Randy L.; Berger, Gordon M.

2007-01-01

NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) has been developing miniature chemical sensors for a variety of applications including fire detection, emissions monitoring, fuel leak detection, and environmental monitoring. Smart Lick and Stick sensor technology which integrates a sensor array, electronics, telemetry, and power into one microsystem are being developed. These microsystems require low power consumption for long-term aerospace applications. One approach to decreasing power consumption is the use of nanotechnology. Nanocrystalline tin oxide (SnO2) carbon monoxide (CO) sensors developed previously by this group have been successfully used for fire detection and emissions monitoring. This presentation will briefly review the overall NASA GRC chemical sensor program and discuss our further effort in nanotechnology applications. New carbon dioxide (CO2) sensing material using doped nanocrystalline SnO2 will be discussed. Nanocrystalline SnO2 coated solid electrolyte CO2 sensors and SnO2 nanorod and nanofiber hydrogen (H2) sensors operated at reduced or room temperatures will also be discussed.

Potential of silicon nanowires structures as nanoscale piezoresistors in mechanical sensors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Messina, M; Njuguna, J

2012-01-01

This paper presents the design of a single square millimeter 3-axial accelerometer for bio-mechanics measurements that exploit the potential of silicon nanowires structures as nanoscale piezoresistors. The main requirements of this application are miniaturization and high measurement accuracy. Nanowires as nanoscale piezoresistive devices have been chosen as sensing element, due to their high sensitivity and miniaturization achievable. By exploiting the electro-mechanical features of nanowires as nanoscale piezoresistors, the nominal sensor sensitivity is overall boosted by more than 30 times. This approach allows significant higher accuracy and resolution with smaller sensing element in comparison with conventional devices without the need of signal amplification.

Design Principles for Rapid Prototyping Forces Sensors using 3D Printing.

Science.gov (United States)

Kesner, Samuel B; Howe, Robert D

2011-07-21

Force sensors provide critical information for robot manipulators, manufacturing processes, and haptic interfaces. Commercial force sensors, however, are generally not adapted to specific system requirements, resulting in sensors with excess size, cost, and fragility. To overcome these issues, 3D printers can be used to create components for the quick and inexpensive development of force sensors. Limitations of this rapid prototyping technology, however, require specialized design principles. In this paper, we discuss techniques for rapidly developing simple force sensors, including selecting and attaching metal flexures, using inexpensive and simple displacement transducers, and 3D printing features to aid in assembly. These design methods are illustrated through the design and fabrication of a miniature force sensor for the tip of a robotic catheter system. The resulting force sensor prototype can measure forces with an accuracy of as low as 2% of the 10 N measurement range.

Distributed estimation and control for mobile sensor networks with coupling delays.

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Housheng; Chen, Xuan; Chen, Michael Z Q; Wang, Lei

2016-09-01

This paper deals with the issue of distributed estimation and control for mobile sensor networks with coupling delays. Based on the Kalman-Consensus filter and the flocking algorithm, all mobile sensors move to a target to increase the quality of gathered data, and achieve consensus on the estimation values of the target in the presence of time-delay and noises. By applying an effective cascading Lyapunov method and matrix theory, stability analysis is carried out. Furthermore, a necessary condition for the convergence is presented via the boundary conditions of feedback coefficients. Some numerical examples are provided to validate the effectiveness of theoretical results. Copyright © 2016 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Miniature Data Repository on a Raspberry Pi

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Argyrios Samourkasidis

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This work demonstrates a low-cost, miniature data repository proof-of-concept. Such a system needs to be resilient to power and network failures, and expose adequate processing power for persistent, long-term storage. Additional services are required for interoperable data sharing and visualization. We designed and implemented a software tool called Airchive to run on a Raspberry Pi, in order to assemble a data repository for archiving and openly sharing timeseries data. Airchive employs a relational database for storing data and implements two standards for sharing data (namely the Sensor Observation Service by the Open Geospatial Consortium and the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting by the Open Archives Initiative. The system is demonstrated in a realistic indoor air pollution data acquisition scenario in a four-month experiment evaluating its autonomy and robustness under power and network disruptions. A stress test was also conducted to evaluate its performance against concurrent client requests.

Multi-Sensor Integration to Map Odor Distribution for the Detection of Chemical Sources

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Xiang Gao

2016-07-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses the problem of mapping odor distribution derived from a chemical source using multi-sensor integration and reasoning system design. Odor localization is the problem of finding the source of an odor or other volatile chemical. Most localization methods require a mobile vehicle to follow an odor plume along its entire path, which is time consuming and may be especially difficult in a cluttered environment. To solve both of the above challenges, this paper proposes a novel algorithm that combines data from odor and anemometer sensors, and combine sensors’ data at different positions. Initially, a multi-sensor integration method, together with the path of airflow was used to map the pattern of odor particle movement. Then, more sensors are introduced at specific regions to determine the probable location of the odor source. Finally, the results of odor source location simulation and a real experiment are presented.

High performance architecture design for large scale fibre-optic sensor arrays using distributed EDFAs and hybrid TDM/DWDM

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, Yi; Austin, Ed; Nash, Philip J.; Kingsley, Stuart A.; Richardson, David J.

2013-09-01

A distributed amplified dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) array architecture is presented for interferometric fibre-optic sensor array systems. This architecture employs a distributed erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) scheme to decrease the array insertion loss, and employs time division multiplexing (TDM) at each wavelength to increase the number of sensors that can be supported. The first experimental demonstration of this system is reported including results which show the potential for multiplexing and interrogating up to 4096 sensors using a single telemetry fibre pair with good system performance. The number can be increased to 8192 by using dual pump sources.

Distributed Long-Gauge Optical Fiber Sensors Based Self-Sensing FRP Bar for Concrete Structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Yongsheng; Wu, Zhishen

2016-02-25

Brillouin scattering-based distributed optical fiber (OF) sensing technique presents advantages for concrete structure monitoring. However, the existence of spatial resolution greatly decreases strain measurement accuracy especially around cracks. Meanwhile, the brittle feature of OF also hinders its further application. In this paper, the distributed OF sensor was firstly proposed as long-gauge sensor to improve strain measurement accuracy. Then, a new type of self-sensing fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) bar was developed by embedding the packaged long-gauge OF sensors into FRP bar, followed by experimental studies on strain sensing, temperature sensing and basic mechanical properties. The results confirmed the superior strain sensing properties, namely satisfied accuracy, repeatability and linearity, as well as excellent mechanical performance. At the same time, the temperature sensing property was not influenced by the long-gauge package, making temperature compensation easy. Furthermore, the bonding performance between self-sensing FRP bar and concrete was investigated to study its influence on the sensing. Lastly, the sensing performance was further verified with static experiments of concrete beam reinforced with the proposed self-sensing FRP bar. Therefore, the self-sensing FRP bar has potential applications for long-term structural health monitoring (SHM) as embedded sensors as well as reinforcing materials for concrete structures.