Sensors Magazine articles from January 2005

Sensors Magazine archives from January 2005

In the year 2024 ...(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)
January 1, 2005... Zager and Evans predicted in their 1960s pop music hit that in the year 4545, you "won't need your eyes," and that in 6565 you'll "pick your son, pick your daughter too, from the bottom of a long glass tube." We all know it won't take that long...

Now-ratified ZigBee spec embraced worldwide.(Business Sense)(www.zigbee.org)
January 1, 2005... It's happened. The event upon which rosy projections of wireless sensor growth is based--completion of the ZigBee spec--has taken place. If the futurists and market researchers are right, we're about to rocket up the hockey-stick slope to...

Research notes.
January 1, 2005... "Service is the fastest growing segment of the automation industry," says Larry O'Brien, director of research, process industries for the ARC Advisory Group (www.arcweb.com). "The vast pools of engineering expertise that used to exist at major...

Calendar.(Calendar)
January 1, 2005... Sensors Expo & Conference Call for Papers deadline is January 17. Get details at www.advanstartech.com/cfp. Intelligent & Smart Packaging USA 2005 January 25-26, Orlando, FL www.intelligentandsmartpackaging.com ...

Single-walled carbon nanotubes monitor blood glucose in vivo.(Research & Developments)
January 1, 2005... University of Illinois researchers led by Michael S. Strano have fabricated a glucose sensor out of single-walled carbon nanotubes. The technology could prove a blessing to diabetics and others who need to pay close attention to their blood...

How's your battery holding up?(Research & Developments)
January 1, 2005... Lead-acid batteries aren't going away in the foreseeable future. And given their ubiquity, it makes sense to look for an electrically noninterfering way to determine their state of charge. Sandia's Jonathan Weiss has devised an optical method...

SHIELD your equipment for safety.(Research & Developments)(Structural Health Integrated Electronic Life Determination)
January 1, 2005... When it comes to hauling heavy loads around, underbuilt equipment will likely break itself, its cargo--and its operator. On the other hand, overbuilt gear is expensive and a waste of material. The same holds true of buildings, bridges, and...

Short takes.(Research & Developments)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Last month we admitted to a particular fondness for Crime Scene Investigation. This month we are trumpeting our adversion to Survivor. This loathsome entertainment assembles teams of narcissistic whiners and schemers who generally just take up...

Drilling in the right place.(AppSnaps)(AB Electronics created Halosensor)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... When aircraft are assembled, the internal wing structure is attached to the skin of the wing using rivets. Traditionally a technique called backdrilling is used where holes are drilled from the inside of the wing out, and these holes then act...

Earth mover R & D.(AppSnaps)(NI's LabVIEW)(Innoventor, Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... When Caterpillar Inc. wanted to improve its scale-model testing of its earth moving machines, its engineers selected a combination of software and real-time hardware from National Instruments. Caterpillar wanted to be able to tweak a...

Fly-by roof inspections?(AppSnaps)(Stockton Infrared Thermographic Services, Inc. offers RoofMoisture FindIR service)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Flat roofs or roofs with a low slope are especially prone to moisture contamination, since the lack of space under the roof retards proper air flow and ventilation. (If you live anywhere with a decent amount of snowfall and know what an ice dam...

Wireless mesh networks in industry: how radios really perform; IEEE 802.15.4-compliant radios are entering the market. But can you trust their spec sheets to give you an honest indication of how they'll actually perform?(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
January 1, 2005... It is now possible to embed radio technology in a wide variety of inexpensive battery-powered devices. In the industrial world, many new products are being developed to place inexpensive sensors wherever there are interesting data. This...

Signal conditioning for your thermocouples: temperature is the most-measured physical property, and thermocouples do most of the measuring. But you can't just plug them in and count on accurate readings. Here's what to look for--and look out for.(SENSOR TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN)
January 1, 2005... Thermocouples (TCs) are probably the most widely used and least understood of all temperature measurement devices. When connected in pairs, TCs are simple and efficient sensors that output an extremely small DC voltage proportional to the...

A multispectral sensor for fingerprint spoof detection: a new fingerprint identification technology looks through the whorls, ridges, and valleys and into the underlying tissue to ensure that unauthorized persons aren't handling things they shouldn't.(PUTTING SENSORS TO WORK)(biometric sensors)(Cover Story)
January 1, 2005... Biometric sensors are devices that can collect information capable of performing an automatic determination of a person's identity. Common types of biometric technologies include facial recognition, iris recognition, and fingerprint sensing....

Shrinking the Pirani vacuum gauge: a MEMS vacuum sensor based on Pirani gauge principles overcomes some of the performance problems associated with conventional designs and has the advantage of an extremely small footprint as well.(SENSOR TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN)(microelectromechanical systems)
January 1, 2005... Micron-scale fabrication techniques fostered by the semiconductor and IC industries have produced an enormous variety of sensing devices that are both smaller and smarter than their precursors. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), as these...

Leak testing with hydrogen: hydrogen, severely diluted with nitrogen, can be used to detect and measure leaks. Take a look first at the technique's competition and see what you think.(SENSOR TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN)
January 1, 2005... Leak testing is an essential part of product quality assurance in a wide range of industries. Because nothing is ever absolutely leakproof, leak testing basically ensures that the product has been tested for maximum allowable leakage. The...

1/4 DIN controllers.(Product News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Platinum Q Series controllers from Athena Controls, Inc., Plymouth Meeting, PA, include the Models Q100 and Q400 temperature controllers and the Model Q5000 process controller. The Q100 offers up to 0.1% input accuracy and features 4 standard...

DA for Palm handhelds.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... Datastick Systems, Inc., Campbell, CA, offers the DAS-1254 and DAS-1294 hardware modules that attach to Palm PDAs for DA as well as 3 new software applications for Palm handhelds. The DAS-1254 and DAS-1294 have four and eight 12-bit analog...

Programmable analog building blocks.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... Anadigm, Inc., Tempe, AZ, offers the Customer Collection of configurable analog modules (CAMs) that can be downloaded to the company's field programmable analog arrays (FPAAs). The CAMs implement a software-controlled function in the FPAA,...

Load cell signal conditioner.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... Operating on voltages as low as 10 VDC, the Model DCA from Interface, Inc., Scottsdale, AZ, supplies excitation voltage to the load cell and amplifies the output signal to either [+ or -]5 VDC, [+ or -]10 VDC, or 4-20 mA. The unit is 2.5 by 3.7...

High-res mini spectrometer.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... The HR4000 from Ocean Optics, Inc., Dunedin, FL, is a high-resolution miniature fiber-optic spectrometer suited for applications such as wavelength characterization of lasers, absorbance of gases, and determination of elemental atomic emission...

Machinery fault detector.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... The Model 682A05 from PCB Piezotronics, Inc., IMI Div., Depew, NY, is a dual 4-20 mA output, DIN-rail-mount machinery fault detector designed to capture the earliest signs of bearing deterioration. The first output measures peak g levels over a...

Vortex shedding meter.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... CoolPoint from Universal Flow Monitors (UFM), Inc., Hazel Park, MI, is a vortex shedding meter for flow transmission and monitoring of water, water-based machine coolant, and water/glycol coolant in building engineering, manufacturing, and...

Magnetostrictive position sensor.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... Designed for high reliability and durability under harsh environmental conditions, Temposonics R Series noncontact linear and absolute position sensors from MTS Systems Corp., Sensors Div., Cary, NC, are digitally based smart sensors with...

USB temperature data logger.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... The EL-USB-1 from Saelig Co. Inc., Pittsford, NY, is a thumb-drive-sized logger with a -25[degrees]C to 80[degrees]C measurement range and memory for up to 16,382 readings. A long-life replaceable lithium battery lets the unit log data...

ZigBee Development platform.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... The CC2420 ZigBee Development Kit from Chipcon AS, Oslo, Norway, lets you map a ZigBee logical device to full- and reduced-function devices using the CC2420 (a single-chip, IEEE 802.15.4-compliant, ZigBee-ready RF transceiver that operates in...

Simultaneous-sampling DA devices.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... National Instruments Corp., Austin, TX, offers the simultaneous-sampling PCI/PXI-6143, PXI-6132, and PXI-6133. The PCI-6143 and PXI-6143 are 8-channel, 16-bit devices that sample at 250 Ksps/channel and feature digital triggering, 8 digital...

1.3 Mpixel smart camera.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... The VC2068/E smart camera from Vision Components GmbH, Hudson, NH, has built-in Ethernet/TCP/IP capability and can acquire full-frame 1240 X 1024 pixel images at 10 frames/s while executing real-time image processing. The camera includes...

Magnetic flowmeter.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... The Admag AXF from Yokogawa Corp. of America, Newnan, GA, retains the features and functions of other Admag flowmeters and adds an optional enhanced 165 Hz dual-frequency excitation method as well as diagnostics to detect electrode coating. The...

Trace analyzers.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... Tiger Optics, LLC, Warrington, PA, offers the MTO-LP-H2O trace moisture analyzer and LaserTrace-O2 module, both of which use cavity ring-down spectroscopy to detect moisture and contaminants. The trace moisture analyzer is designed to measure...

Industrial Ethernet switch.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... SF (standard function) unmanaged Ethernet switches from Phoenix Contact Inc., Harrisburg, PA, offer eight or sixteen 10/100 Mbps ports and a range of 1 or 2 multimode 100 Mbps glass fiber port options. The switch offers redundant power...

Image acquisition board.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... The X64-LVDS from Coreco Imaging, St. Laurent, QC, Canada, is a high-performance, 64-bit image acquisition board for parallel output digital area and linescan cameras compatible with LVDS and RS-422 standards. The card is PCI-slot compliant and...

Fiber-optic gyro.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... Designed to demanding military standards, the DSP-4000 Series from KVH Industries, Inc., Middletown, RI, is available in single- and dual-axis configurations and features an all-fiber design, analog and digital outputs, and max input rates of...

TDR level meter.(Product News)
January 1, 2005... Designed to measure distance, level, and volume of liquids, pastes, and solids, the OPTIFLEX 1300 C TDR level meter from KROHNE, Inc., Peabody, MA, uses guided radar and features sharper pulses to allow the device to detect and measure...

Data logger.(Readers' Choice)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Scientific Technologies Inc., Automation Products Group, Logan, UT, offers the Data Dolphin 128 (DD-128), which features a 24-bit A/D section that provides 8 differential bipolar inputs with resolution down to 90 nV, allowing you to connect...

Mel's picks.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... You know, there's just something about creative destruction that appeals to engineers. Homemade rockets, explosives, high-powered potato guns, liquid-oxygen ignited barbecues, and medieval siege engines. All exhibit that seductive mix of...