Whitepapers

Acoustic wave sensors are extremely versatile devices that are just beginning to realize their commercial potential. This tutorial addresses acoustic wave sensor physics and materials, and the various types of acoustic wave sensors and their industrial applications.

Bill Drafts
Acoustic wave devices have been in commercial use for more than 60 years. The telecommunications industry is the largest consumer, accounting for ~3 billion acoustic wave filters annually, primarily in mobile cell phones and base stations. These are typically surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, and act as bandpass filters in both the radio frequency and intermediate frequency sections of the transceiver electronics. Several of the emerging applications for acoustic wave devices as sensors may eventually equal the demand of the telecommunications market. These include automotive applications (torque and tire pressure sensors), medical applications (chemical sensors), and industrial and commercial applications (vapor, humidity, temperature, and mass sensors). Acoustic wave sensors are competitively priced, inherently rugged, very sensitive, and intrinsically reliable. Some are also capable of being passively and wirelessly interrogated (no sensor power source required).

Although relative humidity is a frequently measured parameter, the long-term stable, precise measurement with a capacitive polymer sensor results into some expenses. First of all, the technological conversion of the series calibration is not simple. From the developer point of view, the most preferable one to use is the complete sensor system, duly calibrated and fitted with a digital interface, which can provide fully processed measured values. In the following article, such a combined Humidity and Temperature sensor has been described, which offers an optimum overall performance at an outstanding price performance ratio based on a new solution concept.
Simple applications in the area of building technology, household appliances and also in the area of air-conditioning systems, it is necessary that stringent requirements are put forward for a humidity sensor. For example, from a customer point of view, even a room air-conditioner has to also perform reliably for period of 10 years. For many applications, apart from relative humidity, the temperature also needs to be measured in order to compute further humidity parameters like Dew point or the Absolute humidity. At the same time, there are also price restrictions to consider so that the sensor can be used in a new product design, especially if it is with respect to a secondary measurement parameter.

When distributed control systems (DCS) first appeared on the industrial automation scene in the mid-1970s, the focus was on control and operator interface. While control and human machine interface (HMI) are still im-portant, todays DCSs have evolved to place increased emphasis on integrating plantwide asset and operational information to enable opera-tional excellence. Furthermore, automation suppliers have moved away from the proprietary hardware, software, and communications of the past, incorporating commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies where practical and appropriate to do so. At the same time, plant engineering and opera-tions groups have adopted many of the same standards already in place at the enterprise IT level, and todays DCSs reflect this.

Todays process control systems can take advantage of advanced general-purpose IT to reduce costs, improve performance, enable interoperability and add other important new capabili-ties. However, the very same technologies make todays industrial systems increasingly vulnerable to security intrusions – malicious or otherwise – from both within and without the plant. Certainly, the IT world has devel-oped powerful tools and techniques to help prevent, identify, and mitigate the effects of intrusions. However, requirements specific to industrial systems (such as the need to maintain nonstop operations and provide deter-ministic response) often make employing these tools and techniques in industrial environments problematic.

Pure tantalum is one of the most corrosion-resistant metals, but its extremely high cost makes it an impractical option for all but the most corrosive applica- tions. However, a new tantalum-based nanotechnology can provide the corro- sion protection of tantalum at a reasonable cost. Tantaline's nanotechnology is based on heating and reacting pure tantalum metal to produce a gaseous atmosphere of tan- talum. The tantalum vapor then creates an alloy bond on the surface (and into the core substrate), becoming a true surface alloy. Because the reaction is on the nano level, with tantalum atoms grown into and on top of all surfaces, its characteristics are very different from traditional coatings such as thermal spray or electroplating.

Korenix MSR: The Most Reliable and High Quality IP Surveillance Network
Along with the emerging market of IP surveillance, network plays increasingly important role in a video surveillance system. The network in its turn, determines the reliability and quality of video delivery. This paper describes the importance of network redundancy for IP surveillance network. It gives a clear idea of how Korenix patented MSR redundancy technology outstands from other protocols and describes all the exceptional benefits that it can give to the IP surveillance system.