Sensors Magazine articles from August 2005

Sensors Magazine archives from August 2005

A few more favorites.
August 1, 2005... Giving awards is fun (see our report on the 2005 Best of Sensors Expo awards, page 12). So much so that it almost makes up for the agony of evaluating entries. In the case of our Best of Sensors Expo awards, few entries are easy to...

Tech leaders invest in Crossbow.(Business Sense)
August 1, 2005... Crossbow Technology, Inc. (www.xbow.com), 2005 Best of Sensors Expo award winner (see page 12), end-to-end supplier of wireless sensor networks and inertial systems, and manufacturer of "smart dust" wireless sensors, has reached technology...

Energy-activated fabrics.(Textronics Inc. spin-off from Invista and get funds from NGEN Partners)(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... Textronics Inc. (www.textron-icsinc.com), a new electro-textile materials and system integration company, has secured investor financing and announced its spin-off from INVISTA (formerly DuPont Textiles and Interiors), one of the world's...

Indoor-capable GPS.(Atmel Corp. and u-blox Ltd. developed Global Positioning System tracking technology)(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... Atmel (www.atmel.com) and u-blox (www.u-blox.com) have announced a new GPS weak-signal tracking technology called SuperSense, supporting ANTARIS GPS chipsets from Atmel and GPS modules from u-blox. The partners say that the new software enables...

Biomed and beyond.(Siemens Medical Solutions USA Inc. acquired Sensant Corp.)(Bio-Nano Sensium Technologies launched beta version of wireless biosensor system)
August 1, 2005... Bio-Nano Sensium Technologies, a subsidiary of Advance Nanotech, Inc. (www.advancenanotech.com), is making available beta versions of its Bio-Nano Sensium (BNS) wireless biosensor system to potential partners and customers for evaluation....

Calendar.
August 1, 2005... For a full listing of sensor-related events, go to www.sensorsmag.com/events. MESA (Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association) International Conference September 26-29, Orlando, FL www.mesa.org International Robots &...

All quiet on the western front-and elsewhere, thanks to UWB/AES.(Time Domain Corp. and KoolSpan Inc. to develop a secure wireless data communication networks)(Ultra wideband )
August 1, 2005... Sandia researchers are working with Time Domain Corp. (Huntsville, AL) and the KoolSpan Inc. Encryption Laboratory (Santa Clara, CA) to develop a secure wireless ultra wideband (UWB) data communication network that could help sensors monitor...

Wireless EEG data could warn of impending seizures.(electroencephalogram data from wireless sensors )(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... Some epileptics can sense an approaching grand mal seizure, but the vast majority are not so fortunate. They can fall off a ladder, spill hot liquids onto themselves, or drive into a serious traffic accident. Moreover, many cannot be helped by...

Microfluidic Technology set to chill your chips.
August 1, 2005... When ICs get too hot they can fail due to electromigration or as a result of the expansion rate differential between the silicon and the organic package substrates. As the power density of high-performance ICs increases, such as 3D multichip...

Ultrasonics keep the water flowing.(Waterite's ultrasonic water softening system )
August 1, 2005... This novel application of ultrasonics doesn't really qualify as a sensor, but we wish we'd had it in place last week when our water pump quit (we have a spring-fed well). A bit of rust got loose in the pump casting and entered a little tube...

Short takes.(Jack Kilby)(Obituary)(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... Engineering has lost a giant: Jack Kilby has died at 81. Me found his engineering calling early in life when his father, owner of a small utilities company in rural Kansas, called on ham radio operators for communication with his customers...

Correction.(Correction notice)
August 1, 2005... In the July issue, at the foot of page 9, the text should have read: "The semicon industry is now geared to an 18-month component doubling cycle. (Thank you again, Faithful Reader!)

Racer testing in software.(AP Racing contracts with CCS Inc.)
August 1, 2005... AP Racing, a world leader in brake caliper and race clutch technology and manufacturing, needed a new, specialized dynamometer that would accurately simulate Formula 1 vehicle speeds, acceleration rates, and airflow around the caliper. The...

Cool beans, mon!(coffee beans storage )(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... Millions of us rely on a good cup of coffee to jump-start our mornings and provide the perfect finish to our evening meals. Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee is one of the world's most recognized and sought-after brands of that beverage. To...

Pitching, rolling, and yawing over the Desert sands.
August 1, 2005... Last year, DARPA announced another Grand Challenge: Design an autonomous vehicle and send it 142 miles over the Mojave Desert in 10 hr. or less. Despite the $2 million prize, none of the initial 118 vehicles in the competition made it to the...

Sensors editors present the Best of Sensors Expo awards 2005.
August 1, 2005... "I'd like to thank our competitors for challenging us to continually raise the bar in product innovation," said MicroStrain president Steven Arms as he accepted his company's latest Best of Sensors Expo award during the June 2005 show. ...

Foundries and MEMS: manufacturability is not enough; There's no "universal foundry" for MEMS devices, but finding the right one will be easier once you size up the knowledge, experience, and manufacturing Infrastructure offered by the candidate facilities.(SENSOR TECHNOLOGY & DESIGN)(Cover story)
August 1, 2005... After a lingering fallout period the MEMS-based sensor industry is now back on a reasonable growth track, with significant advances and manufacturability improvement in MEMS-based products outside the proven sectors. Sensing and actuation for...

Initial payoff, recurring value, and mandates.(wireless sensor networking technology)
August 1, 2005... Thanks to wireless sensor networking (WSN) technology, needs that every industrial enterprise must address can now be fulfilled at a very reasonable cost. Whether in the areas of process, safety, security, business, or IT, many of these...

RE: reliability.(reliability of wireless technology )(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... Although the reliability of wireless technology has improved to the point where it is often similar to wired solutions, most industrial monitoring and control applications where wireless is currently used do not require very high reliability,"...

RFID booms; sensors tag along.
August 1, 2005... According to Richard Clifford of independent market analyst company Datamonitor (www.datamonitor.com), "2005 looks like it will be the year that we begin to see substantial RFID adoption for the first time." A new report that he and...

Wireless HART spec by early '06.(HART Communication Foundation)(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... The Wireless HART working group, an activity of the HART Communication Foundation (HCF, www.hartcomm.org), says it has "set an aggressive goal to produce draft specifications for a Wireless HART standard in early 2006." Insiders, however,...

SP100 launches projects.(Instrumentation Systems and Automation develop technical reports)(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... The ISA's wireless systems standards committee, ISA-SP100 (www.isa.org/community/SP100) recently launched project teams to develop technical reports in four areas: * The basic concepts of radio transmission (including free space...

Calendar.(Calendar)
August 1, 2005... ZigBee Developers' Conference October 3-6, Las Vegas, NV www.zigbee.org ISA Expo October 25-27, Chicago, IL www.isa.org/isaexpo2005 IEEE Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS-2005) November 7-10, Washington,...

Coming soon to you neighborhood: wireless sensor networking is fast approaching your industry. ON World Inc.'s conservative forecast has wireless sensor endpoints deployed in North America going from 246,000 (by the end of 2005) to 4.1 million by 2010. Here's where wireless is making an impact now--and where it will be soon.
August 1, 2005... Managers and engineers in a wide variety of industrial sectors use sensors to monitor equipment, processes, groundwater, tanks, and pipelines from a distance (see the sidebar, "Top Industries and Applications," page S6). Deployments of these...

Your practical guide to plug-and-play sensors.(intelligent systems)
August 1, 2005... Most plug-and-play (P & P) sensors are also--but not always--smart. Many smart sensors are also P & P. And neither smart nor P & P sensors are necessarily network ready. It might sound confusing at first, but it won't be after you...

The LVDT: a simple and accurate position sensor; The venerable linear variable differential transformer is still a viable solution to many position sensing problems.(linear variable differential transformer)
August 1, 2005... The linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) has been around for many years, and remains a popular sensing technology for absolute position measurement. It is relatively simple, operates over a wide temperature range, has extremely fine...

Manufacturing probe needles with vision: combining motion control and machine vision expands inspection equipment capabilities.(Point Technologies Inc. manufactures probes)
August 1, 2005... Motion control and machine vision are used throughout the semiconductor manufacturing process, from monitoring the diameter of ingots as they are formed from a crystal seed to aligning a die lead frame prior to wire bonding. In nearly every...

Selecting a network protocol for robotic machine control; Using a distributed control architecture for robotic machinery often proves to be an efficient and elegant solution, but beware: there are a number of critical decisions to make when selecting a suitable network protocol.(intelligent systems)
August 1, 2005... Robotic machines are becoming a popular solution to a variety of problems. Examples include unmanned vehicles of various types that carry out military operations, surgical robots that assist in the operating room, robotic mining equipment that...

Product news.
August 1, 2005... Product News is but a sampling of the many, many products we've seen recently. The ones included this month reflect a trend, are different enough to make me sit up and take notice, or are nice implementations of current technology. At the...

Corrections.(Correction notice)
August 1, 2005... In the June 2005 issue of Sensors, page 20, Equation (4) should have read: dB = 20 [log.sub.10] ([V.sub.s]/[V.sub.e]) [V.sub.max]/[V.sub.e] = [log.sub.10.sup.-1](dB/20) = [log.sub.10.sup.-1] (90/20) = 31,622 [V.sub.e] =...

Semiconductor Materials for Sensing, vol. 828.(Brief article)(Book review)
August 1, 2005... Semiconductor Materials for Sensing Volume 828 from the Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings Series (2004 MRS Fall Meeting, Boston, MA) Editors: Sudipta Seal, Marie-Isabelle Baraton, Clyde Parrish, and Norimitsu Murayama...

Texas Instruments.(marketing strategies)(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... Texas Instruments is offering a free circuit-simulation program based on a SPICE engine. The software, from DesignSoft, is called TINA-TI and it comes loaded with a library of macro models of TI's analog parts. It provides the conventional DC,...

Foresight Nanotech Institute.(services)(Organization overview)(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... The Foresight Nanotech Institute, founded in 1986, started out educating society about the possible benefits and drawbacks of nanotechnology. Now it has shifted its focus and is concentrating on the beneficial application of nanotechnology. To...

Information Unlimited.(services through web site)(Brief article)
August 1, 2005... If you're looking for educational toys, crossbows, science hobbyist things, and all kinds of other strange and wonderful products, you may want to check out Information Unlimited. The company, dedicated to the experimenter and technology...

Quote of the month.(Mel's Picks)
August 1, 2005... Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others. --Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

Do you consider yourself a Trekkie?(Quick Poll)
August 1, 2005... Do you consider yourself a Trekkie? 40.4% No 34.5% Kinda-sorta 13.0% Yes 10.7% I'm a Klingon Quick Polls are posted on the Sensors Online site every two weeks. Cast your vote in the current Quick Poll at www.sensorsmag.com ...