Sensors Magazine articles from January 2004

Sensors Magazine archives from January 2004

A reflective look.(Editorial)(Editorial)
January 1, 2004... Yes, it's still Sensors. We're celebrating our 20th birthday with a new look. Our talented art director, Howard Happ, started by presenting a new logo and cover design. Once he'd done that, he couldn't wait to use it--and became inspired to...

FIATECH.(Business Sense)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... The FIATECH nonprofit consortium (www.fiatech.org), focused on fast-track development and deployment of technologies to improve the design, engineering, construction, and maintenance of capital projects and facilities, is undertaking its first...

FLIR Systems, Inc.(Business Sense)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... FLIR Systems, Inc. (Portland, OR), has agreed to acquire Indigo Systems Corp. (Goleta, CA, www.indigosystems.com), designer and manufacturer of advanced technology IR products. FLIR designs and manufactures thermal imaging and stabilized camera...

Emerson Process Management.(Business Sense)(Rosemount Analytical Auto Air Blast System)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Emerson Process Management (Irvine, CA, www.emersonprocess.com) reports that its new Rosemount Analytical Auto Air Blast System has cut from weekly to quarterly the rigorous dissolved oxygen (D.O.) sensor maintenance schedule imposed on...

Honeywell Sensing and Control.(Business Sense)(European ATEX Directive)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Honeywell Sensing and Control (Freeport, IL, www.honeywell.com/sensing) has made key products in its explosionproof family comply with the European ATEX Directive. Honeywell products with ATEX approval can be sold and used anywhere in Europe...

Transcat and Troemner.(Business Sense)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Two companies, Transcat and Troemner, are offering new calibration services. Transcat (Rochester, NY, www.transcat.com) has created 10 "centers for calibration excellence" across the U.S. and Canada near major manufacturing centers for the...

WinSystems.(Business Sense)(Red Hat Linux)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... WinSystems (Arlington, TX, www.winsystems.com) now routinely embeds Red Hat Linux on its PC/104, EBX, and STD bus single board computers (SBCs), reasoning that the robust, low-cost, and widely accepted operating system provides a natural...

Tech-Net Sales and Marketing Consulting.(Business Sense)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Tech-Net Sales and Marketing Consulting (Trabuco Canyon, CA, rclark35@cox.net), a new launch, is taking advantage of its staff's 40 years of sales/marketing, application engineering, and sensor design experience to offer services for both...

Revolution Sensor Co.(Business Sense)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... The newly established Revolution Sensor Co. (Apex, NC, www.rev.bz) offers more than 30 years' experience in sensor design and application, including position, velocity, acceleration, gas analysis, pressure, flow, temperature, moisture, LVDT,...

Calendar.(technical management; sensors/ automation)(Calendar)
January 1, 2004... Project Scheduling Principles and Strategies (for technical management) January 27-30, Los Angeles, CA uclaextension.org/shortcourses Automated Imaging Association Business Conference February 4-6, Orlando, FL ...

How stiff is stiff?(Research & Developments)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... If you suffer from muscle stiffness, researchers from the Dept. of Orthopedic Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, may be able to help you. They've been working on a painless way to measure just how stiff the deepest muscle fibers are...

Nanofingers for the future!(Research & Developments)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Because ceramics are hard and have an annoying habit of chipping, carving them is challenging, frequently requiring the use of diamond-edged tools, lasers, or ultrasound. However, engineers at Ohio State University have found an easy way...

Checking transplant health.(Research & Developments)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... After an organ transplant procedure, there's always a chance that the liver, kidney, or heart will be rejected or that blood flow will not be established in the transplant. Discovering these problems in real time would go a long way toward...

Sprinkle, sprinkle little star.(AppSnaps)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... When you install an automatic sprinkler system, you leave behind the joy of dragging a hose around the yard or getting soaked setting up a manual sprinkler. Not having to water by hand or keep an eye on the timer are prime benefits of using a...

Fighting fire for fighters.(AppSnaps)(Kidde Aerospace in Wilson, North Carolina)
January 1, 2004... To protect crews of armored fighting vehicles, extinguisher system engineers at Kidde Aerospace in Wilson, NC, needed to develop a fire-suppression system that was extremely responsive, could handle abuse, and wouldn't burn through their...

Aye Cayambe!(AppSnaps)(Mount Cayambe in Ecuador)
January 1, 2004... "Glaciers in the tropics are melting at an alarming rate," says Ret Talbot, a teacher at Oldfields School in Maryland, and he should know. Talbot recently led a dozen high school girls on the International Nontraditional Teaching Initiative...

Digital temperature sensors: help for hot boards; Circuit designers need to keep temperature excursions to a minimum on increasingly hot, crowded boards. Integral digital temperature sensors and some control circuitry can do the trick.(Sensor Technology and Design)
January 1, 2004... Printed circuit boards are getting hotter and hotter as more and more is squeezed onto them. The thermal properties of these boards have thus far been monitored and controlled by assorted conventional devices--thermistors, RTDs, and...

Secure low-power operation of wireless sensor networks: how the IEEE 802.15.4 standard balances security and low-power operation in wireless sensor networks.(Intelligent Systems)(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
January 1, 2004... Low power consumption is one of the defining characteristics of wireless sensor networks using the IEEE 802.15.4 Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Network (LR-WPAN) standard [1]. Nodes in IEEE 802.15.4 networks can operate for many months from...

Iris-based recognition: keep your eye on it! A quick, simple, noncontact, noninvasive way to prove who you are can race you through customs, let you into restricted areas, or keep your children safe at school. It's all in the eyes.(Putting Sensors to Work)(iris recognition)
January 1, 2004... Let's begin our look at iris-based recognition by seeing what it's not. It's not a "stealth" technology intended to identify suspicious behavior from a distance. It can't be used for any sort of "profiling." And it won't work on anyone who...

Sensors is 20!
January 1, 2004... Born in January 1984, Sensors marks its two-decade anniversary with this issue. So we're celebrating with a new look, a look back, and more fun throughout the year, including a party at Sensors Expo & Conference in June (www.sensorsexpo.com)....

Industrial automation networking: 2004 and beyond; Trying to plan ahead? Read our survey of the current industrial networking landscape, and learn which protocols are dominant now and which ones to keep an eye on in the future.(Intelligent Systems)
January 1, 2004... The plant floor landscape is moving rapidly. In the old days we dodged lift trucks and electric vehicles. Now we dodge salespeople offering the next networking technology. From current loop to RS-485, from Modbus to DeviceNet, to PROFInet and...

Choosing the right pressure sensor for your OEM application: unless they're buying software, most people expect their purchases to work right the first time--and that's the OEM's job.(Sensor Technology and Design)(original equipment manufacturers)
January 1, 2004... Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) integrate complex and dependent technologies into instrumentation and monitoring equipment designed to detect and control pressure. One of the primary drivers in any OEM design is the price-to-performance...

Digital hall effect switches.(Product News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Able to detect the presence or absence of a magnetic field irrespective of the magnet's polarity, the A3213 and A3214 from Allegro Microsystems, Inc., Worcester, MA, offer a latched digital output and nominal current consumption of 300 [micro]A...

Optical range sensor.(Product News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... The LaserRanger LR2 from Aculux, Bellevue, WA, has 0.001 in. resolution, measurement ranges of 2-4, 4-7, or 7-11 in., and a max. sample rate of 1250 Hz. RS-232 and 4-20 mA analog interfaces are standard; you can also trigger the range sensor...

Co-integrated sensor.(Product News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Silicon Microstructures, Inc., Milpitas, CA, offers its Model 5201 that combines a MEMS pressure sensor with CMOS/EEPROM signal conditioning on a single chip; the sensor is offered as die (Model 5201) or in an SOIC16 (Model 5822). The sensor...

Wireless LAN module.(Product News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Each Airborne integrated 802.1 lb module from DPAC Technologies, Garden Grove, CA, includes a radio, baseband processor, application processor, and software and lets you add LAN and Internet connectivity to your products. Interoperable with...

High-temperature thermistors.(Product News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... AdSem, Inc., Palo Alto, CA offers silicon (Si) and germanium (Ge) NTC interchangeable thermistors. The Si thermistors have a temperature range from -40[degrees]C to 500[degrees]C, and the Ge thermistors' range is from -100[degrees]C to...

Wireless link.(Product News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... The BlueLynx BLM-TX from Wilcoxon Research, Inc., Gaithersburg, MD, collects analog signals from up to four 4-20 mA sensors and transmits them wirelessly to a BlueLynx BLM-RX receiver wired to a PLC, DCS, or other instrumentation system or to a...

2-axis inclinometer.(Product News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... SCA100T Series dual-axis inclinometers from VTI Technologies, Inc., Vantaa, Finland, and Dearborn, MI, have internal temperature measurement and compensation, long-term stability better than 0.02[degrees], and measurement ranges of [+ or...

Fiber Bragg grating sensor arrays.(Product News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... LxSix Photonics, St. Laurent, QB, Canada, offers the LxSensor Series of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) multisensor arrays for distributed smart sensing applications involving strain, temperature, and pressure monitoring. The arrays have several...

Web picks.
January 1, 2004... A new year, a new start, and maybe even a New Year's resolution. Considering how low the success rate seems to be with these things, I thought I'd recommend a Web site that will (hopefully) help you keep any resolution that you've made. The...