SENSORS IN METROLOGY

Sensors and metrology as the driving force for digitalization:

      -Sahil Wagh

      -Snehit Kale

      -Shubh Kasat

      -Aniket Kedar

      -Gaurav Shah

Many digitalized processes depend on data collected by increasingly powerful sensors and other test and measurement technology. When this data is processed, it provides precise and reliable information about the operating environment.
A great many innovations in today's digital era rely on the ability to transfer information from the real world to the digital universe—examples include advances in gesture recognition, non-contact materials testing and artificial respiration.
In applications like these, sensors and other test and measurement systems can be equated to enabling technologies because many new developments are based on them.

Terahertz Sensors:

Terahertz imaging is one of the new technologies that is being used increasingly to monitor industrial processes and test new materials. This non-contact method can be used to measure coating thickness, analyze the structure of polymer composites, or detect defects in non-conductive materials.

The integrated sensor probe permits reflection measurements orthogonal to the surface of the test sample and can be used without modification in combination with commercially available terahertz measuring systems.

Supplying sensors with energy created by tiny vibrations:

One of the challenges in the Internet of Things (IoT) is how to supply power to wireless sensors.Even the slightest vibrations generating a pressure of 100 mg at a frequency of 60 hertz are sufficient for a vibration transformer to produce the electrical energy needed to operate several sensors and transmit data once per second. The Maximum Power Point Tracker provides an effective means of controlling the charge converter so as to guarantee a maximum power yield. The energy harvesting solution recharges the battery while the device is in operation and enables the design of IoT sensors with an unlimited service life, without power cable or swapping batteries.

CMOS optical filter for low-cost chip-size spectrometers:

What is a CMOS Sensor?

A CMOS sensor is an electronic chip that converts photons to electrons for digital processing.

CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) sensors are used to create images in digital cameras, digital video cameras and digital CCTV cameras. CMOS can also be found in astronomical telescopes, scanners and barcode readers. The optical technology is used in machine vision for robots, in optical character recognition (OCR), in the processing of satellite photographs and in the enhancement of radar images, especially for metrology.

Cheaper, energy-efficient, and on-chip integratable:

CMOS’ low manufacturing cost makes it possible to create low-cost consumer devices. Advances in CMOS technology have made it possible for them to approach their competitor in high-end digital cameras, charge-coupled devices (CCD). In contrast to CMOS, CCD cells are not surrounded by transistors and must actively use power to gather light. This makes them less power-efficient but also enables the benefits of a lower-noise image and greater light sensitivity.

High-performance Hydrogen sensor:

A hydrogen sensor is a gas detector that detects the presence of hydrogen. They contain micro-fabricated point-contact hydrogen sensors and are used to locate hydrogen leaks. They are considered low-cost, compact, durable, and easy to maintain as compared to conventional gas detecting instruments.

The Low Hydrogen Concentration measurement sensor (LHyCon) can replace standard helium-based leak detectors, offers high measurement sensitivity, and moreover costs significantly less than other methods with a comparable performance.

Pocket-sized laboratory for monitoring water quality:

A highly selective and sensitive, autonomous test system is capable of detecting trace amounts of predefined chemical substances (in the micromol range) in waste water. Uses of this pocket-sized laboratory include evaluating the quality of water bodies.

Its main component is a chemical sensor based on microfluidic technology, hence its very compact design. By reducing the size of the system to such small dimensions, it can operate in situ without human intervention.

chemical sensor