Our Sensors Supplier Guide in this months Sensor Technology supplement shows you leading manufacturers in the following categories: Acceleration/Vibration Chemical/Gas Electrical/Magnetic Encoders/Resolvers Flow Force/Strain/Load/Torque Industrial/IoT LIDAR/Radar MEMS Motion Position/Displacem

To many people, a measurement sounds mundane, like marking ticks on a ruler or reading the line on a thermometer. It’s a piece of data. And they tend to think that improved measurements look like finer and finer ticks on a ruler. But making new measurements is more than just making finer marks on a

It’s been a truth for a long time: if you want to study the movement and behavior of single atoms, electron microscopy can give you what X-rays can’t. X-rays are good at penetrating into samples — they allow you to see what happens inside batteries as they charge and discharge, for example — but his

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have developed an optical amplifier that they expect will revolutionize both space and fiber communication. The new amplifier offers high performance, is compact enough to integrate into a chip just millimeters in size, and crucially, does not generat

FREETOUCH Darren David, Suzanne Hitchcock, Joe Kotas, Josh Wagoner, Stephan Winokur, and Julie Yamato Freetouch San Francisco, CA Winner of an HP Workstation The COVID-19 pandemic has created a new touch-averse customer segment concerned about the safety of shared touchscreens and kiosks. In 2020, o

Impact the Future with NASA Being an astronaut isn’t the only cool thing about space. Interns use their creativity and innovation to work on projects impacting NASA missions such as returning to the Moon. NASA interns work with leading experts and gain valuable experience in research and mission pro

MULTIFUNCTIONAL BIONANOCOMPOSITE FRUIT COATINGS Sylvia Jung, Nancy Cui, Neethu Pottackal, Pulickel M. Ajayan, and Muhammad M. Rahman Rice University Houston, TX Winner of an HP Workstation Hunger and chronic under-nourishment impact over 800 million people in the world while a third of the food prod

Electrically conducting polymers have made possible the development of flexible and lightweight electronic components such as organic biosensors, solar cells, light-emitting diodes, transistors, and batteries. The electrical properties of the conducting polymers can be tuned using a method known as

HALO SPECULUM – INVENTED BY A FEMALE FOR THE FEMALE Dr. Tamatha Fenster Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY Mitchell Tung OneWorld Design & Manufacturing Group, Warren, NJ JJ Lees Artisan Medical Devices, Medford, NJ Winner of an HP Workstation The history of the speculum dates back to the 1840

Dylan Drotman University of California, San Diego Winner of an HP Workstation This four-legged soft robot needs no electronics to work — only a constant source of pressurized air for all its functions including its controls and locomotion systems. Applications include robots that can operate in envi

A research team constructed a new dye molecule from the area of mechanophores. Thanks to this molecule, stress of different magnitudes in plastic components can be visualized continuously by color changes. The concept of such dyes is not new but most previous mechanophores were able to only indicate

Who The wearable device turns the touch of a finger into a source of power for small electronics and sensors. It can be used in any daily activity involving touch; for example, things a person would normally do while at work, at home, while watching TV, or eating. What A thin, flexible strip can be

The Create the Future Design Contest, launched in 2002 by SAE Media Group (publishers of Tech Briefs magazine), recognizes and rewards engineering innovations that benefit humanity, the environment, and the economy. The annual contest draws product designs from engineers, students, and entrepreneu

Researchers have created a low-cost method for soft, deformable robots to detect a range of physical interactions, from pats to punches to hugs, without relying on touch at all. Instead, a USB camera located inside the robot captures the shadow movements of hand gestures on the robot’s skin and clas

Alternating current (AC)-driven servo systems are no longer the only reliable option for industrial motion control, with advances in direct current (DC) stepper and servo motors and drives providing robust alternatives. While many traditional low-voltage DC drives cannot handle the rigor of hostile

A sister to SHEARLESS booms, the Bistable Collapsible Tubular Mast (Bi-CTM) boom offers compact storage on a cylindrical drum that deploys a composite material boom with a closed tubular cross-section that has unmatched bending and torsional stiffness for the mass of the thin-shell structure. The Bi

Smart clothing has been developed that employs conductive nanotube thread to weave functionality into regular apparel. The fibers were sewn into athletic wear to monitor the heart rate and take a continual electrocardiogram (EKG) of the wearer. The fibers are just as conductive as metal wires but wa

We love the warm rays of the summer sun, enjoy cooling off with a cold drink or a refreshing dip in the pool. We appreciate the warm touch of another person, enjoy a hot tea or warming fireplace in winter. We feel temperature, but we cannot ‘see it’ with our eyes. Thermal imagers make visible this p

The goal of robotics and robotic-assisted surgery is to enable surgeons to perform complex, previously not-available procedures with increased precision that leads to reduced surgery and recovery times, as well as lowering risks for patients. Robotic surgery has made significant impacts in many appl

The UAV industry has significantly evolved and grown in recent years. Alongside this growth, we have seen the development of UAVs and drones with increasingly advanced infrared imaging systems, containing detectors that are larger in size and smaller in pixel size, which present challenges for UAV o