Physorg March 15, 2018 Humans interpret their information about 40 milliseconds faster than visual cues. Sound alerts are only a small part of the picture. The bigger prize is enabling devices to “hear” – both other devices and other sounds in a house. This could be done relatively easily using similar technology to audio watermarking. Household devices require is a microphone, loudspeaker and relevant software… read more.
Category Archives: Sensors
DARPA Seeks to Expand Real-Time Radiological Threat Detection to Include Other Dangers
DARPA News February 20, 2018 DARPA announced its SIGMA+ program, an expansion of the existing SIGMA program. The program calls for the development of highly sensitive detectors and advanced intelligence analytics to detect minute traces of various substances related to WMD threats. SIGMA+ will use a common network infrastructure and mobile sensing strategy. The detection network would be scalable to cover a major metropolitan city and its surrounding region. The program is structured around two Phases. The first phase focuses on developing novel sensors for chemicals, explosives, and biological agents, the second phase focuses on network development, analytics, and integration. […]
Using technology to detect hidden threats
Eurekalert February 9, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (University of Delaware, Army Research Laboratory) is creating an augmented reality system that will use traditional cameras, thermal infrared sensing, and ground penetrating radar to find and classify potentially dangerous objects from up to 30 meters away. The radar can detect objects buried up to 3-5 inches. The multi-camera system can be used in the night, foggy conditions, and dust storms. It can be deployed on autonomous vehicles, drones, or robots sent to scout the surroundings before troops move in. The technology is being tested in a training facility… […]
What your face says about your heartbeat
Physorg January 29, 2018 When the heart circulates blood through the arteries and veins, the light absorbed by the skin changes by measurable amounts. Hemoglobin in the blood has an absorption peak for green light. When the heart pushes blood into arteries near the skin, more green light is absorbed and less is reflected. Researchers at Utah State University have invented a system that processes the color data and computes an average over regions of the image where skin is visible on the face, neck or arms. Future versions of the design could even replace hospital tools that monitor blood […]
Magnetosensitive e-skin senses objects without touching (w/video)
Nanotechweb January 22, 2018 A device that can manipulate virtual objects needs to have two basic functions: the “touch” function and being able to detect the position of an object in space. An international team of researchers (Germany, Austria) synthesized very thin foils upon which they patterned two Wheatstone bridges accommodating a set of eight magnetic field sensors, each with a well-defined magnetic anisotropy axis. By using this configuration, and the intrinsic properties of the sensors themselves, the whole circuit can output two signals associated with the x and y in-plane components of the external magnetic field. The software processes […]
Sensor the size of a nitrogen atom investigates hard drives
Nanowerk January 2, 2018 Researchers in Germany are developing a quantum sensor that will be able to precisely measure the tiny magnetic fields we can expect to see in the next generation of hard discs. The sensor itself is just slightly larger than a nitrogen atom, with a specially grown ultra-pure diamond crystal as a substrate. The combined nitrogen-vacancy center acts as the actual sensor. Using electron spin resonance spectroscopy, they can detect magnetic fields with nanometer accuracy, and determine their force opening an extraordinary range of applications. Potentially the sensor can be used to measure brain activity. Read […]
Ocean of Things Aims to Expand Maritime Awareness across Open Seas
Source: DARPA, December 6, 2017 DARPA’s Ocean of Things program seeks to enable persistent maritime situational awareness over large ocean areas by deploying thousands of small, low-cost floats that could form a distributed sensor network. Each smart float would contain a suite of commercially available sensors to collect environmental data—such as ocean temperature, sea state, and location—as well as activity data about commercial vessels, aircraft, and even maritime mammals moving through the area. The floats would transmit data periodically via satellite to a cloud network for storage and real-time analysis. The technical challenge lies in two key areas: float development […]