Defense Systems November 11, 2020 The small and variable characteristics of the virus combined with complex indoor environments make using a single detection and measurement technique extraordinarily difficult. Optical environmental sensors, which can offer fast detection times, are not always able to discriminate between benign and pathogenic material. The SenSARS program (Pre-solicitation) aims to overcome these existing challenges to environmental monitoring. DARPA is primarily interested in three use cases: detecting the virus in a 50-cubic-meter office, similar detection in a 300-cubic-meter conference room or classroom, and central monitoring of HVAC systems in buildings up to 10 stories. Solutions must have […]
Category Archives: Sensors
Laying the groundwork for ultra-thin, energy efficient photodetector on Gorilla glass
Nanowerk November 2, 2020 Direct growth of high-performance, scalable, and reliable electronic materials on glass is difficult owing to low thermal budget. Researchers at the Pennsylvania State University have addressed the issue by relatively low-temperature (<600 °C) metal–organic chemical vapor deposition growth of atomically thin MoS2 on multicomponent glass and fabrication of low-power phototransistors using atomic layer deposition (ALD)-grown, high-k, and ultra-thin Al2O3 as the top-gate dielectric, circumventing the challenges associated with the ALD nucleation of oxides on inert basal planes of van der Waals materials. The MoS2 photodetectors demonstrate the ability to detect low-intensity visible light at high speed […]
Researchers invent flexible and highly reliable sensor
Science Daily November 2, 2020 Real-time health monitoring and sensing abilities of robots require soft electronics. Unlike rigid devices, being elastic and pliable makes their performance less repeatable due to hysteresis. Researchers in Singapore have developed a sensor, Tactile Resistive Annularly Cracked E-Skin (TRACE) which addresses the trade-off between sensitivity and hysteresis in tactile sensors when using soft materials. They discovered that piezoresistive sensors made using an array of three-dimensional metallic annular cracks on polymeric microstructures possess high sensitivities, low hysteresis over a wide pressure range and have fast response. They have demonstrated that TRACE sensors can accurately detect and […]
AI detects hidden earthquakes
Science Daily October 22, 2020 Earthquake signal detection and seismic phase picking are challenging tasks in the processing of noisy data and the monitoring of microearthquakes. A team of researchers (Stanford University, Georgia Institute of Technology) has developed a global deep-learning model for simultaneous earthquake detection and phase picking. Performing these two related tasks in tandem improves model performance in each individual task by combining information in phases and in the full waveform of earthquake signals by using a hierarchical attention mechanism. They applied their model to 5 weeks of continuous data recorded during 2000 Tottori earthquakes in Japan and […]
An 11-atom sensor sheds light on the quantum world
Nanowerk October 14, 2020 Researchers in the Netherlands developed a device composed of individual Fe atoms that allows for remote detection of spin dynamics. They have characterized the device and used it to detect the presence of spin waves originating from an excitation induced by the scanning tunneling microscope tip several nanometres away; this may be extended to much longer distances. The device contains a memory element that can be consulted seconds after detection, similar in functionality to e.g. a single photon detector. They performed statistical analysis of the responsiveness to remote spin excitations and corroborated the results using basic […]
3D-printed ‘invisible’ fibres can sense breath, sound, and biological cells
Nanowerk October 2, 2020 Researchers in the UK 3D printed the composite fibres which are made from silver and/or semiconducting polymers. It creates a core-shell fibre structure, with a high-purity conducting fibre core wrapped by a thin protective polymer sheath, a few micrometres in diameter. The printing technique can also be used to make biocompatible fibres of a similar dimension to biological cells, which enables them to guide cell movements and ‘feel’ this dynamic process as electrical signals. The sensor was used for testing respiratory conditions such as normal breathing, rapid breathing, and simulated coughing. It significantly outperformed comparable commercial […]
Color-coded biosensor illuminates in real time how viruses attack hosts
Science Daily September 25, 2020 Researchers at the Colorado State University invented a biosensor that lights up blue when viral translation is happening, and green when normal host translation is happening, in single living cells. They have shown this host-attacking process, at the single-molecule level in living cells, and they have reproduced these behaviors in computational models. The models showed that both healthy human RNA and viral RNA fluctuate between states that actively express proteins and those that are silent. The combination of their sensors and computational analyses provide powerful tools to understand, predict, and control how future drugs might […]
Dogs Deployed at Helsinki Airport Can Detect COVID-19 With Almost 100% Accuracy
Science Alert September 25, 2020 The aim of this study by an international team of researchers is to evaluate if the sweat produced by COVID-19 persons has a different odor for trained detection dogs than the sweat produced by non-COVID-19 persons. The study was conducted on 3 sites, following the same protocol procedures, and involved a total of 18 dogs. The percentages of success of the dogs to find the positive sample in a line containing several other negative samples were 100p100 for 4 dogs, and respectively 83p100, 84p100, 90p100 and 94p100 for the others, all significantly different from the […]
Rapid rescue of buried people
Fraunhofer Research October 1, 2020 Researchers in Germany have developed a mobile radar device that can search hectare-sized areas quickly and thoroughly. The new technology combines greater mobility with accurate detection of vital signs. They have developed an algorithm designed to detect irregular heartbeats. The system detects vital signs close to the stationary radar system, successfully putting it to the test at distances of up to 15 meters. In about two years they expect to transition the technology to UAV based applications to reliably detect buried casualties…read more.
Highly sensitive trigger enables rapid detection of biological agents
MIT News September 16, 2020 Researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory have developed Rapid Agent Aerosol Detector (RAAD) for the U.S. military’s early warning system for biological warfare agents. It pulls aerosol to cull out the small particles. NIR laser diode creates a structured trigger beam that detects the presence, size, and trajectory of an individual aerosol particle. If the aerosol article is roughly 1 to 10 micrometers a UV laser is activated to illuminate the particle. If the particle seems threat-like, it is vaporized to collect atomic emission to characterize the particle’s elemental content. The steps are integrated into a […]