Sensors and Sensing Systems

- Overview

Today's industrial landscape is characterized by unprecedented volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Therefore, operational efficiency along with lower costs and greater safety of assets and personnel is becoming more and more important. Against this backdrop, sensing technology and its advancements play a key role in keeping industrial operations competitive and efficient.

Sensing technology and its various applications continue to evolve as technology and business needs advance. Sensors can be used to detect a variety of real-world properties - from distance to heat to pressure. 

Products today use sensors to sense everything around them, and they are extremely accurate, consume less power, and are cheap to install and maintain. Sensors have proven to be an essential component in creating new value for their processes and their respective businesses.

- Sensors and Sensing Technologies

The main goal of Sensors and Sensing Systems is to showcase the latest advances in the field of sensors. The broad overview includes optical, infrared, hyperspectral, terahertz, biological, magnetic, chemical, acoustic and radiation sensors. 

It includes basic sensor operation and the implementation of the sensor in the measurement system. Other topics to be covered include the physics of sensing, interfacing electronic circuits, and sensor characteristics.

Various sensor technologies are used to achieve these objectives, including inductive, magneto-resistive, ultrasonic, optical, pressure, and capacitive. The main developing trend of sensor technology is miniaturisation, with a rise in the usage of multi-sensors and wireless systems.

- General Principles of Sensors

The range of sensors is very wide and there are many types, but fundamentally speaking, a sensor is a device that detects the characteristic quantity of the measurement object and converts the characteristic quantity into a readable signal and displays it on the instrument. Sensing technology, simply put, is a technology that uses sensors to detect physical, chemical or biological qualities to obtain information and convert it into readable signals.

There are a variety of sensors available to meet almost any industrial need. For demanding, mission-critical industrial applications, sensors can help improve processes and provide unparalleled asset protection.

These sensors provide instant monitoring, including detection and reporting, as needed for the process. The data monitored and collected by the sensor is sent for control and analysis, and any anomalies in a specific property are reported by sending an electrical signal through the sensor. In this way, sensors can improve process efficiency and product quality while ensuring processes comply with best practices.

[The Chiba Urban Monorail, Chiba, Japan - Civil Engineering Discoveries]

- Emerging Types of Sensors and Actuators, and Emerging Applications

• Emerging types of sensors: touch, pressure, thermal, radiation, humidity, chemical, high- performance image and IR, air and pollution, magnetic, water, radar, high performance inertial, high performance microphones, microphone arrays.
• Emerging types of actuators: high performance micro speakers, optical zoom, micro shutters, energy harvesters.
• Emerging applications: digital health, body area networks, medical diagnostics and screening, genomics, safety and security, environmental, virtual reality, indoor navigation, quantified self, usage paid insurance.

- Wireless Sensor Networks

A wireless sensor network (WSN) of spatially distributed autonomous sensors that monitor physical or environmental conditions such as temperature, sound, pressure, etc., and communicate the data to primary locations through network collaboration. More modern networks are bidirectional and can also control sensor activity. The development of wireless sensor networks has been driven by military applications such as battlefield surveillance; today, such networks are used in many industrial and consumer applications such as industrial process monitoring and control, machine health monitoring, etc. 

Smart grids require a large number of end applications to sense the environment or control smart devices. Due to their low cost and high functionality, wireless sensors are widely deployed in power grids. Relying on the wireless sensor network (WSN), the power grid can build a two-way communication system, and customers can interact extensively with the network, which can not only provide electricity consumption data, but also feed self-produced energy back to the power grid. 

Wireless sensor networks could also enable new smart home electronics, smart energy-efficient buildings and highways, and in vivo networks for analysis and treatment of medical conditions.