|
| | Monitoring Within and Without
| | Firefighters and HazMat workers have a very tough job. They're frequently in heavy gear, in unfriendly atmospheres, and working hard. Unfortunately, this combination of equipment, environment, and job stress means that frequently they're operating at the limits of human endurance. |
| | Beacons on the Battlefield
| | | It's a fact that, in the chaos of the battlefield (and especially in confused urban warfare situations), people die from so-called "friendly fire." Adapting a MEMS technology developed for use in gas sensors, ICx Ion Optics has created IR emitters tuned to night-vision wavelengths. |
|
| |
|
On-Site Trace Chemical Detection, Part 1:
| | | The first installment of this two-part series discusses ion mobility spectroscopy (IMS), the leading contender for fast and reliable detection of trace chemicals, and differential ion mobility spectroscopy (DMS), a related technology that provides faster, smaller and more sensitive sensors capable of detecting chemicals in environments with greater concentrations of interfering substances. |
| | | The Big Picture: Sensor Webs in Disaster Response Demo
| | | In an increasingly wired world, knitting together data from disparate sources into an interoperable whole can present disaster managers and first responders with critical information during a major emergency or crisis. Building on a vendor-neutral interoperability framework for Web-based discovery, access, control, integration, and visualization of online sensors, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) tested this idea in a December 2006 disaster response demo. |
|
| |
|
| | Look to the Birds
| | | Oxford University zoologists Graham Taylor and Adrian Thomas have
outfitted an eagle with four miniature high-speed spy cameras and
other instruments in a 15 g pack to learn more about its aviational
secrets. An inertial measurement unit recorded details of the
bird's aerobatics and transmitted the data to a receiver on the
ground. |
| |
| |
|
| | Mesh Radio Network Performance in Cargo Containers
| | | Wireless sensors installed inside a cargo container? Aren't they metal? Then the radio signal can't get out . . .or can it? Here's how mesh-networked 2.4 GHz, 802.15.4-compliant RF transceivers performed when placed within cargo containers. |
| | Freight Fright Reduction
| | | GE's security business (www.ge.com ) has completed the first commercial field test of the Tamper Evident Secure Container (TESC), a freight container developed jointly with the world's leading manufacturer of maritime shipping containers, China International Marine Containers Group Ltd. (CIMC).
|
|
| |
|
| Linear Avalanche Photodiodes Enable Single Photon Sensors
| | | Single photons are elementary particles that are arguably the most tangible, yet some of the most difficult to detect and characterize as single entities. Techniques to count single photons require optical detectors with linear operation, high gain, wide bandwidth and low noise. This article will describe a variety of approaches to detect and count single photons, the key measurement metrics, and potential applications of single photon sensors. |
| | Three’s a Crowd for Instrumentation Amplifiers
| | | By using an indirect current-feedback topology, instrumentation amplifiers can avoid some of the pitfalls inherent in using three op amp instrumentation amplifiers powered from single supply voltages. |
| | Market Prospects for Position Sensors
| | | The proportion of industry sales varies widely among sensing technologies, with proximity sensors taking the largest market share. While the smallest share belongs to linear displacement devices, this category is forecast to experience the highest growth. |
|
| |
| 
