Sensors

I spoke to the Chief Marketing Officer of Meta at the October 2021 TechBlick Printed and Flexible Electronics online conference who detailed Meta's acquisiton of Nanotech Security, a firm making devices for banknote security, in early October 2021.

Siemens Healthineers presented its progress on direct x-ray sensors using thick perovskite films at a TechBlick event in October 2021.

I interviewed Dr Andy Behr about Panasonic's new Beyolex printed electronics substrate at the TechBlick Printed and Flexible Electronics online conference.

To collect accurate images of a patient's brain, the patient must be still and confined in a tube-like MRI scanner for a long period of time. To better assess their brain function and behavioral health, however, they should move naturally and freely during a scan. Researchers have proposed a solution to both clearly visualize and accurately assess the brain via photoacoustic imaging with a stretchable, flexible material.

Ideas have moved on from a smart city being a dystopian world of sensors everywhere and people control by artificial intelligence - smart cities are primarily about progressing to water, food, and power independence and minimal transport. How to make smart cities in both deserts and the sea must be figured out.

Presentation by IDTechEx Senior Analyst Dr Matthew Dyson including some of his recent research on new SWIR image sensing technologies.

Bare Conductive is an early-stage company based in London UK, that has developed a cost-effective technology for large-area capacitive sensing. In 2021 it launched a spin-out brand 'LAIIER' to target industrial smart surface applications more effectively. IDTechEx interviewed CEO Matt Johnson to find out more about the latest developments.

Researchers have developed a new, cost-effective, ecological solution for augmenting the printed page with rich, up-to-date digital content. The development overcomes one of the most significant advantages e-books have over paper books, helping paper maintain its strong position in its competition with electronic media.

Engineers have developed a type of wearable they call a "biosymbiotic device," which has several unprecedented benefits. Not only are the devices custom 3D-printed and based on body scans of wearers, but they can operate continuously using a combination of wireless power transfer and compact energy storage.

PolyIC produce capacitive touch sensors based on transparent conductive films, which can be integrated within 3D plastic parts. This update profile is based on a presentation given at the 'Elantas Printed Electronics Day' in October 2021.

SteadySense is a wearable skin patch industry company with core hardware in temperature monitoring. Their current focus is on temperature-based ovulation monitoring in the fertility technology sector. IDTechEx analysts James Hayward and Andy Ko interviewed SteadySense CEO and founder Werner Koele in 30 Sep 2021.

AlixLabs is an early-stage company that is commercialising an improved method of atomic layer etching (ALE) in semiconductor manufacturing. Their method, which they call Atomic Layer Etch Pitch-splitting (ASP), is projected by them to reduce process time, investment costs and environmental impact for fabrication of upcoming generation IC chips by approximately half per lithography mask layer.

Researchers have developed a sensor that could diagnose a heart attack in less than 30 minutes. Currently, it takes health care professionals hours to diagnose a heart attack. Initial results from an echocardiogram can quickly show indications of heart disease, but to confirm a patient is having a heart attack, a blood sample and analysis is required. Those results can take up to eight hours.

The widespread adoption of machine vision makes image sensors that can detect light outside the visible spectrum increasingly useful, since the aim is to augment human sight rather than duplicate it. For example, imaging in the short-wave infra-red (SWIR) spectral region, which spans from 1000 to 2000 nm, offers multiple benefits that can supplement conventional cameras.

Presentation given by Dr Matthew Dyson, Senior Technology Analyst at IDTechEx, at the International Conference on Flexible and Printed Electronics (ICFPE)

A team of bioengineers has invented a novel soft and flexible self-powered bioelectronic device. The technology converts human body motions — from bending an elbow to subtle movements such as a pulse on one's wrist — into electricity that could be used to power wearable and implantable diagnostic sensors.

A recent study shows pesticides in fruit and vegetables kill 11,000 people every year and unintentionally poison 385 million worldwide. Monitoring these foods for microscopic chemicals and harmful bacteria can take days of sending small batches off to laboratories for testing and analysis. But now, a new detector is being developed to spot minute traces of these poisonous elements with photonics to give a result in minutes.

Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation announced the upcoming release of two types of stacked event-based vision sensors. These sensors designed for industrial equipment are capable of detecting only subject changes, and achieve the industry's smallest pixel size of 4.86μm.

The RedTail LiDAR Systems RTL-450 was integrated onto the Teledyne FLIR SkyRaider Unmanned Aerial System to address a broad range of the EOD community's 3D mapping needs.

Colorimetrix is a diagnostics industry company with a core software that processes analog colorimetric tests. Their current focus is on hormone diagnostics for ovulation monitoring in the fertility technology sector. IDTechEx analysts Nadia Tsao and Andy Ko interviewed Colorimetrix CEO and Cofounder Dr Leo Martinez on 29 Sep 2021.