EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff => Topic started by: mngiggle on August 15, 2016, 07:31:28 pm
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I'm putting together a talk on new sensor technologies for a regional technical seminar, and I want to make sure that in my digging through the semi companies (or what's left of them), Google, online journals, IEEE mags/journals, etc. I'm not missing out on any interesting stuff because of blinders I don't know I'm wearing.
Anyway, I'm looking for new, newly available/affordable, or coming-soon sensor technology that could actually be used in a product in the near future, and since this community has quite a few pros and is pretty adept at sniffing out BS, I figured I'd throw it out here. Anybody have sensors or types of sensors that they're read about -- or better yet used -- recently that are particularly novel or interesting?
(I know, this is going to sound like a "can you do my homework for me?" question, but it is what it is, I'm just hoping to be able to cover the things I haven't worked with personally yet.)
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I am not aware of any new sensor technology on the horizon.
The sensor technology that is dropping in price and seems to be flavor of the month is thermal imagaging.
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I'm putting together a talk on new sensor technologies for a regional technical seminar, and I want to make sure that in my digging through the semi companies (or what's left of them), Google, online journals, IEEE mags/journals, etc. I'm not missing out on any interesting stuff because of blinders I don't know I'm wearing.
Anyway, I'm looking for new, newly available/affordable, or coming-soon sensor technology that could actually be used in a product in the near future, and since this community has quite a few pros and is pretty adept at sniffing out BS, I figured I'd throw it out here. Anybody have sensors or types of sensors that they're read about -- or better yet used -- recently that are particularly novel or interesting?
(I know, this is going to sound like a "can you do my homework for me?" question, but it is what it is, I'm just hoping to be able to cover the things I haven't worked with personally yet.)
This looks interesting, and I think you can buy them, now, very recently released (at least by that company/version). I think they have been around for a long time, but use to be wickedly expensive, and NOT small or low powered. They even seem to be fairly cheap/affordable (but NOT that cheap, by any means), at least for some types of projects, such as robots.
World smallest Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging sensor
(http://www.st.com/content/ccc/fragment/sales_and_marketing/banner/homepage_banner/group0/9c/b6/c7/9f/65/b2/40/cf/VL53L0x_hp_banner/files/homepage_banner_vl53l0x.jpg/_jcr_content/translations/en.homepage_banner_vl53l0x.jpg)
http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/imaging-and-photonics-solutions/proximity-sensors/vl53l0x.html?icmp=tt3945_gl_bn_jul2016 (http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/imaging-and-photonics-solutions/proximity-sensors/vl53l0x.html?icmp=tt3945_gl_bn_jul2016)
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World smallest Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging sensor
Thank you! I remember seeing this mentioned elsewhere when it was announced, but completely spaced on it while working on this...
We were trying to see if this was feasible (cheaply) at a previous company 10 years ago, but the errors built up too quickly when you weren't working entirely inside a chip. Plus I was inexperienced and very likely didn't have a clue how to do it correctly... :-//
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World smallest Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging sensor
Thank you! I remember seeing this mentioned elsewhere when it was announced, but completely spaced on it while working on this...
We were trying to see if this was feasible (cheaply) at a previous company 10 years ago, but the errors built up too quickly when you weren't working entirely inside a chip. Plus I was inexperienced and very likely didn't have a clue how to do it correctly... :-//
I'd love to know how they do it. It does say something about a single photon avalanche device. Which sounds more like something you would find in a $499,999,999 CERN facility, rather than a tiny, affordable sensor, which does not need liquid Nitrogen cooling or anything special.
The speed of light is so fast, I'm a bit surprised that they can so easily and readily measure it, over such small distances. I guess they have developed special techniques to make it possible. Possibly similar to how GPS systems, can cheaply measure distances, also related to the speed of light (electromagnetic waves).
It does seem rather complicated inside it, from the little information, I have read about it, so far.
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Invensense has announced a fingerprint imager using an ultrasound sensor. http://ir.invensense.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=237953&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2103436 (http://ir.invensense.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=237953&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2103436)
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Scanning MEMS based LIDAR modules? (http://www.innoluce.com/)
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I'd love to know how they do it. It does say something about a single photon avalanche device. Which sounds more like something you would find in a $499,999,999 CERN facility, rather than a tiny, affordable sensor, which does not need liquid Nitrogen cooling or anything special.
Why? Silicon avalanche diodes have existed for a long time, with decreasing process sizes their integration on a low voltage device isn't that surprising.
It's curious that they have an array of single photon detectors though. I guess an array with various attenuation factors and just picking the one which doesn't trigger spuriously too often was cheaper than trying to work with a conventional APD, less analog processing needed.
The speed of light is so fast, I'm a bit surprised that they can so easily and readily measure it, over such small distances.
A simple PIC (http://www.edn.com/design/sensors/4433411/Use-Time-Domain-Reflectometry--TDR--for-low-cost-liquid-level-measurement--Part-III) can measure at 50 ps accuracy single shot and 3.5 ps with averaging.
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Scanning MEMS based LIDAR modules? (http://www.innoluce.com/)
Interesting! Saw this recently too (not as far along, and laser currently not included)... http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/optoelectronics/mit-lidar-on-a-chip/ (http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/optoelectronics/mit-lidar-on-a-chip/)
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I'd love to know how they do it. It does say something about a single photon avalanche device. Which sounds more like something you would find in a $499,999,999 CERN facility, rather than a tiny, affordable sensor, which does not need liquid Nitrogen cooling or anything special.
Why? Silicon avalanche diodes have existed for a long time, with decreasing process sizes their integration on a low voltage device isn't that surprising.
It's curious that they have an array of single photon detectors though. I guess an array with various attenuation factors and just picking the one which doesn't trigger spuriously too often was cheaper than trying to work with a conventional APD, less analog processing needed.
The speed of light is so fast, I'm a bit surprised that they can so easily and readily measure it, over such small distances.
A simple PIC (http://www.edn.com/design/sensors/4433411/Use-Time-Domain-Reflectometry--TDR--for-low-cost-liquid-level-measurement--Part-III) can measure at 50 ps accuracy single shot and 3.5 ps with averaging.
I'd misunderstood it, to some extent, when I first read about these sensors.
I thought they mean that it sends a SINGLE photon out. What they meant was that it receives/senses a single photon.
I agree that there are methods of measuring timing very accurately. But still think that it is very clever to design such systems, and that there is probably major/complicated work involved in designing such things.
So I would still love to know (in detail), how it works.
Analogy:
I would love to know (but already know many of the answers), how the moon landing worked, from start to finish.
Your explanation is like saying, "it's simple, just sellotape a giant fire work (cheap PIC) on to the space capsule".
The actual technical details of how the moon landing worked, gets very complicated.
E.g.
The method by which it continues to work, quickly and accurately, even in (outside) daylight conditions, makes its method of operation, interesting. As many solutions to problems like this, would not work well (or even at all), in daylight.
Also how it can cope with black surfaces (only 3% returned light).
Etc etc.
EDIT:
But anyway, thanks for telling me about using the PICs to make very accurate time measurements. I'd come across that technique in some PIC datasheets, I'd read, but not yet looked into it or how it worked. But I would have still thought that things like jitter and other technical issues. Still make things like that, technically difficult to do well/accurately.