Posts Tagged ‘sensors’
The Next Generation of Night-Vision Goggles
The newest goggles boast ridiculously sensitive (yet adjustable) thermal sensors as well as a data overlay--like a smartphone inside your goggles
The current top-of-the-line goggle is known as Enhanced Night Vision Goggles: it combines the classic glowing-green image intensification (known as "i2") with thermal sensors. The i2 is an --the military is constantly working on a digital version, but at the moment the digital version has a lag that's unacceptable--that essentially amplifies the tiny bits of light that exist even in a "pitch-black" area. But those aren't great for, say, spotting an enemy lying in the tall grass, and then can be rendered useless with a blinding flash of light.
So the Enhanced Night Vision Goggles include a thermal sensor that's easily the most sensitive we've ever heard of. Says Shachtman: "In a specialized trailer outside the factory, ITT's Harry Buchanan shows how sensitive the thermal sensor is. He rubs his hands on the wall, then puts them back by his side. Through the eyepiece, I can still see his handprints. Then Buchanan takes his shoes off. Not only do his feet leave similar marks; his shoes continue to glow hot."
The next version, still in alpha (and pictured above) actually shoots video and transmits it live, so a commander (or whoever) can see what the soldier sees. But it also has a built-in display, sort of like , that shows just about any kind of data the soldier might need: maps, messages, locations, footage from drones or other soldiers, that kind of thing.
Read more about the goggles over at .
Microwave Sensors Auto-Detect Bikes At Intersections, To Trigger Traffic Signals and Protect Cyclists
The Bay Area town of Pleasanton, Calif., is the only municipality in the nation to use this system, which cyclists say is already improving efficiency and safety. The motion and presence sensor can tell the difference between bikes and cars, and alter traffic signal patterns accordingly.
Many cities have embedded road sensors that can detect bikes as well as cars, but they don’t work if the bike isn’t positioned properly or if the bike is not made of metal. Bike commuters might be tempted to ride through the intersection rather than wait, which is neither legal nor safe.
Video-monitoring systems can also help detect bikes — Pleasanton uses these at all intersections — but they are stymied by wind and fog, according to the . Continuous video monitoring can also spark privacy concerns.
The microwave sensors can monitor up to eight detection zones, which the city would specify, and send up to four commands to the traffic signal control box — such as “right turn,” “straight through” and so on. It updates 20 times per second and can track both moving and stationary vehicles, , MS Sedco. The systems cost between $4,000 and $5,000 apiece, the Contra Costa Times says.
Pleasanton has the systems at seven intersections so far, with plans to add at least one more. It should come in handy when cars are eventually outnumbered by bikes in that part of the country.
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Video: Japanese Robot Torso Hugs You Back
Meet the Sense-Roid
Created by a student at the aptly named University of Electro-Communications in Japan, the Sense-Roid is essentially a sewer's dress form--a mannequin torso, in other words--that wears a very particular jacket or vest. The user also wears a jacket, and when the two articles of clothing connect, they being to inflate with air and vibrate in ways meant to simulate a real hug.
In fact, the Sense-Roid mimics the pressure from the user's hug, so in a way, hugging it is like hugging yourself. It detects the precise nature of the hug with micro switch sensors, then reciprocates in real-time. There are no known plans to make the Sense-Roid any more than a prototype.
The videos that follow are...weird. They're safe for work, of course, as there's no nudity or foul language or anything like that. But we can't say that the image of somebody forcefully caressing a mannequin torso isn't a little bit disturbing in its own way.
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The Goods: June 2011′s Hottest Gadgets
Sprinklers that read your lawn's mind, 3-D phones, speakers that adjust the sound for your location and more
to see our favorite gadgets of the month.
In One Hour, For Less Than a Buck, a Sensor Made of Jell-O and Foil Detects Acute Pancreatitis
This test is way faster than existing diagnostics for acute pancreatitis, a condition in which sudden inflammation of the pancreas can cause a good deal of pain, fever, shock, and occasionally death. The sensor is basically a battery with a two-tiered, enzyme selective switch. To test for acute pancreatitis, a bit of blood extract is dropped on a layer of gelatin and milk protein. If there’s enough trypsin--an enzyme that exists in elevated levels in patients with the condition--it eats right through the gelatin/protein mix.
At this point a drop of sodium hydroxide is added. If the trypsin has truly eaten through the gelatin, the sodium hydroxide is exposed to a layer of foil below, where it will begin eating a hole. With both the gelatin and the foil dissolved, a circuit is able to form between an iron salt at the cathode and a magnesium anode, lighting up the LED. If the LED lights up in less than an hour, the patient has acute pancreatitis.
“We’ve turned Reynold’s Wrap, Jell-O and milk into a way to look for organ failure,” Brian Zaccheo, the UT grad student behind the sensor, told . Perhaps best of all, it’s the size of a quarter, costs less than a dollar, and requires no external electricity source (in fact, it is a battery). That means it could go virtually anywhere, providing a cheap means of diagnosing acute pancreatitis in the developing world or in out-of-the-way locales.
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New Ultra-Sensitive Nanosensor Chip Could Sense Any Substance
The latest sniffer is a billion times more sensitive than its predecessor
The DARPA-funded sensor uses a chip full of metal pillars to boost the light signals bouncing off an object. It’s a billion times more sensitive than was previously possible, according to researchers at Princeton University.
It’s a major advance for , which examines light reflecting off an object to determine its molecular composition. Researchers have been trying for decades to tease out these light frequencies, but it’s hard to see them even with advanced laboratory methods.
The new chip uses arrays of metal pillars, which have small cavities at their bases and tops and a bunch of nanodots on their sides. A molecule to be studied is placed on the chip, and a beam of pure one-color light is focused at it. The cavities trap the light so it passes by the nanodots multiple times, generating the Raman signal more than once. It’s several orders of magnitude more powerful than previous Raman scattering sensors.
The device, called “disk-coupled dots-on-pillar antenna-array” or D2PA, is also easy and cheap to make, according to Stephen Y. Chou, the Princeton electrical engineering professor who led the research team. The chip was described in the journal Optics Express.
Raman scattering has great potential for a variety of fields, and this could make it more widespread, he said.
“We’ve developed a way to significantly enhance the signal over the entire sensor, and that could change the landscape of how Raman scattering can be used,” he said.
Under Armour’s Sensor-Embedded Shirts Measure NFL Prospects, Stride by Stride
The E39 shirt will be used by "somewhere between 10 and 30" NFL prospects at this year's NFL Combine, a week-long exhibition of the nation's best prospective football players in which the upstarts are tested both mentally and physically. It's one of the most important tests for a young player, who might be able to overcome a small size or undistinguished college career and impress coaches with strength, speed, or fierceness. The coaches will have an extra tool to measure physical fitness this year in the E39.
The heart-rate and breathing monitor embedded in the sides of the shirt are fairly standard, though useful to find out real-time updates on a player's internal mechanisms. But it's the triaxial accelerometer that's particularly interesting to us. Embedded right in the center of the chest, the accelerometer measures the left and right side of the body separately, showing how the two work in concert (or not so much). That allows measurement of each stride in its acceleration and braking, which can help a player make minor adjustments to maximize speed.
cites an example in which a player was taking exceedingly long strides, which resulted in the front foot braking as the rear foot caught up. A coach noticed the deceleration that emerged as a result of that braking, and advised the player to simply take shorter strides. The player instantly showed smoother, more consistent acceleration, and the reduction of the deceleration that dogged him before.
You'll actually be able to see the E39's data in real-time in the NFL Network's broadcast of the Combine on Saturday, if you're into that kind of thing. After the Combine, Under Armour will make the E39 shirt available to other athletes and schools.
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