Sensors

Analogue capability and security functions in the Renesas Synergy S1JA microcontroller, target sensor signal acquisition and conditioning to simplify industrial instrumentation, multi-sensory systems and single-phase electrical meters, says RS Components. The low power microcontroller is based on a 48MHz Arm Cortex-M23 processor core with 256kb code flash and 32kb SRAM. There is also an integrated 16-bit ADC, 24-bit sigma-delta ADC, 12-bit DAC, op amps, ...

Mouser stocks the ADIS1647x precision industrial inertial measurement units (IMUs) from Analog Devices.  The IMUs can be used in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) devices, as well as for navigation in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), autonomous vehicles, smart agricultural equipment as well as industrial and IoT devices. The IMUs deliver six degrees of freedom sensing, using triple-axis MEMS-based gyroscopes and ...

Students in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at University College Dublin can learn production technologies for Industry 4.0, or the smart factory, with hands-on experience via an automated factory demonstration unit, donated by Maxim Integrated Products. The football factory demo was popular at exhibitions around Europe, where it was used to showcase the principles of intelligent, automated production ...

Devon-based Ashwoods Electric Motors has chosen torque sensors from Isle-of-Wight-based Datum for its suite of automated dynamometers, which Ashwoods designed in-house. “The team wanted a relatively small torque sensor that could fit into their existing dynamometers to ensure the electric motor operate at optimal efficiency,” claimed Datum. Chosen was the M425 sensor, which has a wide-enough operation range to remove the need ...

Allegro MicroSystems has announced the release of a family of micro-power Hall-effect switching ICs in battery-powered automotive and industrial applications, as well as in less demanding environments. Called APS11700 and APS11760, the three pin (power, ground, output) devices have a simple (but protected) open-drain output and can consume as little as 6µA average from an unregulated 3.3-24V supply due to ...

Inertial measurement units (IMUs) from Bosch Sensortec are now available from Mouser. The BMI088 is a low noise, six-axis inertial sensor is designed for industrial applications as well as drone and robotic applications. The IMU has a 16bit digital, triaxial accelerometer and a 16bit digital, triaxial gyroscope to measure orientation and detect motion along three orthogonal axes. It offers acceleration ...

Battery-powered consumer electronics can have artificial intelligence hearing, according to a partnership between low-power MCU firm Ambiq Micro, mems microphone maker Vesper and sound recognition specialist Audio Analytic. They are not offering wide vocabulary speech recognition, but recognition of individual sounds. “Meeting steep power consumption demands remains the largest barrier to truly enabling AI on battery-powered edge devices,“ said Ambiq v-p of ...

A piezoelectric absolute pressure sensor which is so accurate and stable that manufacturers can eliminate one-point calibration (OPC) after soldering Is offered by ST. With a pressure noise equivalent to 5cm, ST’s LPS22HH enhances controls such as collision avoidance for drones or other unmanned vehicles. In addition, temperature compensation is built in, relieving the load on the host microcontroller or ...

A UK consortium is to develop quantum-based gravity sensors that will allow underground objects and voids to be detected. The aim is to build a portable technology demonstrator by April 2021, that is twice as sensitive as the industry standard (falling mass) technique and, importantly because the aims is for this to lead to a commercial product, 10x faster in ...

Belgian chip firm Melexis has upgraded its optical time-of-flight sensor – effectively a multi-pixel light-based radar – for in-vehicle use. The new device, the AEC-Q100 qualified MLX75024 has the same 320 x 240 (QVGA) resolution as the firm’s previous offering, but with twice the sensitivity and half the power consumption. The sensitivity increase “allows it to operate in lower light ...