by Rudy Ramos, Mouser Electronics Often overlooked is the value of a sense of touch in robotics development. Designers focus strongly on discrete features such as power, freedom of movement, and machine vision. However, tactile sensing complements all of these and helps make the most of them. Having a sense of touch also adds unique […]
Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)
How can you reduce audio noise in an airport?
At Sensors Expo 2018, Giovanni De Majo from audio and pressure sensor product marketing at ams, demonstrates how his company’s AS3415 Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) chip can help reduce the background noise for headphone users in an airport, car or airplane. Selecting between the noise situation in an airplane car or airport De Majo chooses […]
How can sensors be used for predictive maintenance?
At Sensors Expo 2018, Antonio Cirone from ST Microelectronics demonstrated and discussed different approaches for predictive maintenance for motors, fans and more using accelerometers, environmental and acoustic MEMS sensors. The demo has two motors. The green motor is balanced properly and the red motor is out of balance. Spectrum analysis of the triaxial accelerometer output […]
How can the power consumption for computing be reduced for energy harvesting?
At Sensors Expo 2018, Chet Jewan, vice-president of sales and business development from Eta Compute, explains how his company’s computing technology can benefit heart rate monitoring and energy harvesting applications. The first demo, with an Eta Compute chip running at 0.476V powered by solar energy, displays Jewan’s heart rate. A second demo has sensors being […]
How do you get an MCU design to market quickly?
The short answer is with development boards. For more details, at Sensors Expo 2018, an expert from Microchip Technology explains how his company expands the capability of microcontroller (MCU) evaluation boards with numerous MikroElektronika plug-ins using a microbus connector for a variety of applications. In addition, with the MPLAB Code Configurator, base code can be […]
How can you harvest RF energy?
At Sensors Expo, Eric Biel, an engineer from Powercast Corporation, explains how radio frequency or RF energy can be used in energy harvesting applications. RF wireless power transmitted by the PowerSpot transmitter is received by two receiver sticks with LEDs. The TX91503 PowerSpot transmitter broadcasts an RF signal in the unlicensed 915 MHz industrial, scientific […]
What can you do with a water-resistant pressure sensor?
At Sensors Expo 2018, a product marketing engineer for ST Microelectronics demonstrates how a water-resistant pressure sensor mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB) can be submerged in water and provide accurate readings. With this capability, it has potential applications in wearable devices, altimeters and barometers for portable devices, GPS applications, weather station equipment, Industry […]
How can asynchronous power produce longer battery life?
At Sensor Expo 2018, Paul Washkewicz, Vice-President of Marketing for Eta Compute explains how his company’s application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) uses asynchronous logic to lower the power to the microcontroller unit (MCU) to extend battery life. The ASIC is based on an ARM M3 and has a CoolFlux digital signal processor (DSP) from NXP in […]
How can sensing be distributed in a smart building?
At Sensors Expo 2018, Masakazu Shiinoki, a field application engineer from the MEMS Sensor Business Unit of Omron shows how different microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensing technologies can be used in a building. The three (ground, first and second) floors use barometric (absolute pressure), airflow and differential pressure sensors. In addition, the first floor has an […]
How do you design a winning pressure sensor demo?
At Sensors Expo 2018, Caleb Kim from ROHM Semiconductor explains a visually intriguing display in his booth. A ROHM pressure sensor was used to build a game. Whenever the ball portion of the game is struck, the pressure sensor attached to the ball measures the difference in pressure. The harder the ball is hit, the […]
