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 Futurists are encouraged by possibilities residing in Internet-connected sensors for making us better aware of how to get through the day,Now a people-counting product called Density, a combo of hardware and software app, proposes one more step in humanizing data-collecting for our own benefit—figuring out how the day will go based on people-traffic. Density is both sensor and app; the population data of a place is shared real-time via the cloud.Placed on a doorframe, it is designed to tell you how crowded or empty is a conference room, store, restaurant or other place you need or want to visit."Our sensor gets attached to a place's entrance, measures anonymous movement as people come and go, and generates real-time and historical data that can be integrated anywhere," said Density. Density uses infrared light to measure movement. By design, Density cannot capture any personally identifiable information about consumers.The app works by surfacing data collected by small, Internet-connected, infrared optical sensors in the doorway of each business, said Rachel Metz in MIT Technology Review.Using Density, a restaurant, for example, could detect and then broadcast if there were open tables. If you wanted to visit a gym, you could check online to see if the treadmills were free to use. As for night life, "No one likes a bar that's too crowded, or for that matter, one that's too dead," said Fast Company. Density could help.This would not be the first time somebody has thought of a solution to count people. Surveillance cameras and so-called break-beam systems, said Metz, have been used to keep tally based on how often the infrared beam is broken by a passerby.Metz wrote that Density CEO Andrew Farah said Density's aim was to provide another way which would do away with privacy concerns over cameras, while also collecting data in realtime. For business owners, the sensors would help them understand their foot traffic from day to day.Developers would be another group to benefit, through a Density API. Density, said psfk, is "completely Internet-connected, and the data it collects can be accessed by the developer community, which gives rise to a whole new field of entrepreneurial startups."So far, said Metz, Density has installed prototypes of its sensors in over a dozen businesses. They include coffee shops as well as other types of establishments. Workfrom, for example, is a website that is aggregating data to notify remote workers of the least crowded places to get work done, said psfk"Their best spots get very busy," said Density, and Density measures real-time seating capacity. Workfrom integrates the data into their website.Density said another example is in Berkeley, California, where "a team is adding Density to school gyms and workspaces. From anywhere on campus, students will be able to see if a popular place is busy or quiet."Stacey Higginbotham of Fortune, in an earlier report on the startup, commented that Density's technology offering "has myriad potential applications. If applied to public institutions like the post office or motor-vehicles departments, Density's technology looks less like a plaything and more like a valuable tool for making the service economy more efficient." 

If you want to save on your monthly electric bill and reduce your greenhouse gas emissions at the same time, you might buy a new, energy-efficient refrigerator. Or water heater. Or clothes dryer. But if you can only replace one of these, which will give you the biggest payback?You could try to figure that out by comparing the energy-use labels from your existing appliances with those of the models you might purchase—if you still have your old labels. Even then, the numbers may differ significantly from your actual usage, depending on factors such as age, condition, and your local climate. But soon, there could be a much easier way to figure out exactly how much power is being used by every appliance, lighting fixture, and device in your home, with pinpoint accuracy and at low cost, thanks to devices and software developed by researchers at MIT.The team's findings, developed over several years of intensive research, are described in a series of papers, including one published this week in the IEEE Sensors Journal, in a paper by MIT Professor of Electrical Engineering Steven Leeb and recent graduates David Lawrence MEng '16 and John Donnal PhD '16. Another paper from the team, which also includes as co-author James Paris PhD '13, is still in press.While many groups have worked on developing devices to monitor electricity use, the new MIT system has some key advantages over other approaches. First, it involves no complex installation: No wires need to be disconnected, and the placement of the postage-stamp-sized vibration sensors over the incoming power line does not require any particular precision—the system is designed to be self-calibrating. Second, because it samples data very quickly, the sensors can pick up enough detailed information about spikes and patterns in the voltage and current that the system can, thanks to dedicated software, tell the difference between every different kind of light, motor, and other device in the home and show exactly which ones go on and off, at what times.Own your own dataPerhaps most significantly, the system is designed so that all of the detailed information stays right inside the user's own home, eliminating concerns about privacy that potential users may have when considering power-monitoring systems. The detailed analysis, including the potential for specialized analysis based on an individual user's specific needs or interests, can be provided by customized apps that can be developed using the MIT team's system.Tests of the system have showed its potential to save energy and greenhouse emissions—and even to improve safety. One installation at a military base used for training exercises revealed that large tents were being heated all day during winter months, even though they were unoccupied for most of the daytime hours—a significant waste of money and fuel (which, in a combat setting, could be an important logistical concern). Another test installation, in a home, found an anomalous voltage pattern that revealed a wiring flaw that caused some copper plumbing pipes to carry a potentially dangerous live voltage."For a long time, the premise has been that if we could get access to better information [about energy use], we would be able to create some significant savings," Leeb says. He and his students have been tackling the problem for more than 10 years and bit by bit have found ways to circumvent the daunting problems involved in achieving this basic task.First was the ability to monitor changes in voltage and current without cutting the main incoming power line to a home or business (an expensive process requiring a licensed electrician) or plugging every appliance into a special monitoring device. Other groups have attempted to use wireless sensors to pick up the very faint magnetic and electric fields near a wire, but such systems have required a complex alignment process since the fields in some places can cancel each other out. The MIT team solved the problem by using an array of five sensors, each slightly offset from the others, and a calibration system that tracks the readings from each sensor and figures out which one is positioned to give the strongest signal.Interpreting the data flowThe next trick was in figuring out how to analyze the reams of data flowing in from the high-speed sensors, in order to tease out which bits correspond to current and voltage, and how that information could be used to identify "signatures" of specific appliances. This is possible because every motor or device has distinctive characteristics as to exactly how fast and how much the voltage varies, or spikes, at the moment the device switches on, or as it operates. After extensive testing in the lab, in homes, at the Fort Devens Army base outside Boston, and aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Spencer, the team was able to develop a catalog of such signatures, to identify each kind of electrical load.And finally, given the prodigious amount of raw data generated by the system, the team had to figure out how to extract the useful information and display it in a way that would make it easy for people to make decisions about energy investments. They developed an interface that allows users to "zoom in" on specific time segments, revealing enough data to tell when a refrigerator turns on or off, or goes into its defrost cycle, or how often a water heater is switching on and off during the day."A bunch of major players have gotten into, and out of, this field," says Leeb, including giants like Google and Microsoft. But now, he says, the MIT team has solved the key issues and come up with a practical and very powerful system. One of the major insights they had was that keeping most of the data within the home and sending only small subsets out into the cloud for processing solved two problems at once: It eliminated the privacy concerns of using such a system, and it eliminated the huge bandwidth and data transmission costs that would be required if the raw data was sent to a central facility.Once the system is developed into a commercial product, Leeb says, it should cost only about $25 to $30 per home. "We're trying to lower the barriers to installation," says co-author John Donnal, and this noncontact sensor is simple enough for most home users to install on their own. "It just goes on with a zip tie," he says.William Singleton, an engineer at the U.S. Army Fort Devens Base Camp Integration Laboratory, who was not involved in this research, says this work "is an excellent example of how theoretical scientific and mathematical principles can be brought to bear on real world, practical, problem-solving applications." By using the MIT team's sensing system, he says, "significant potential savings in fuel, water, and equipment maintenance can be realized. This will provide increased options for the battlefield commander in accomplishing his mission, reduce the overall base camp logistics footprint, and ultimately save lives of warfighters involved in base camp sustainment and resupply." 

Sony's advance in image sensors appears quite natural: the company has developed a set of curved CMOS image sensors based on the curvature of the eye. A report on the sensors in IEEE Spectrum said that, "in a bit of biomimicry," Sony engineers were able to achieve a set of curved CMOS image sensors using a "bending machine" of their own construction.Sony's Kazuichiro Itonaga, a device manager, reported on the new development in Hawaii, at the 2014 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits. This is a conference on semiconductor technology and circuits, which took place from June 9 to June 13.It was unclear how much the chips were curved, said IEEE Spectrum, although Itonaga said they did achieve the same level of curvature found in the human eye. The curved systems were 1.4 times more sensitive at the center of the sensor and twice as sensitive at the edge, according to the Sony engineers.According to IEEE Spectrum, "Photodiodes at the periphery of a sensor array will be bent toward the center, which means light rays will hit them straight on instead of obliquely. What's more, the strain induced on a CMOS sensor by bending it alters the band gap of the silicon devices in the sensor region, lowering the noise created by 'dark current'—the current that flows through a pixel even when it is receiving no external light." A curved CMOS sensor has an edge over a planar sensor, Itonaga noted. Considering its geometry, it can be paired with a flatter lens and larger aperture, which lets in more light.Two chips were reported. First, there was a full-size chip that measured some 43 millimeters along the diagonal, suitable for a camera. A smaller chip with smaller pixels suitable for mobile phones was also reported. Gizmodo said the 43mm was possibly to suit a follow-up to the RX1 compact camera. There is no date yet on when the sensors will make their way into consumer products, but IEEE Spectrum said the team made about 100 full size sensors with their bending machine. No official word yet on when the sensors will show up in products for sale has not deterred speculations on how and where they might appear. SonyAlphaRumors said the full frame curved sensor is likely to come on the new RX2. No matter when, PetaPixel a photography blog, said on Friday that the curved full-frame sensor promises to be "an impressive leap forward in digital imaging technology:" 

A new type of electronic sensor that might be used to quickly detect and classify bacteria for medical diagnostics and food safety has passed a key hurdle by distinguishing between dead and living bacteria cells.Conventional laboratory technologies require that samples be cultured for hours or longer to grow enough of the bacteria for identification and analysis, for example, to determine which antibiotic to prescribe. The new approach might be used to create arrays of hundreds of sensors on an electronic chip, each sensor detecting a specific type of bacteria or pinpointing the effectiveness of particular antibiotics within minutes."We have taken a step toward this long-term goal by showing how to distinguish between live and dead bacteria," said Muhammad Ashraful Alam, Purdue University's Jai N. Gupta Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "This is important because you need to be able to not only detect and identify bacteria, but to determine which antibiotics are effective in killing them."Findings are detailed in a research paper appearing this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper was authored by doctoral student Aida Ebrahimi and Alam. The droplet sensor evolved from a device originally designed to detect small concentrations of negatively charged DNA molecules in research that began about four years ago, Ebrahimi said."We did not anticipate that the sensor could be used to tell live and dead bacteria apart -- it was a chance observation that eventually led us to this elegant way of measuring cell viability," she said.As described in the PNAS paper, the sensor works by detecting changes in electrical conductivity in droplets containing bacteria cells. (A Youtube video about the research is available at https://youtu.be/QN019bQJCb8?). "To see if someone is alive," Alam said, "we can either count the grandchildren many generations later, which is analogous to the traditional growth-based techniques. Or, we can directly measure the person's pulse, analogous to the proposed 'osmoregulation-based' detection of bacteria. Needless to say, immediate physiological measurement is faster and far superior."Bacteria cells maintain the proper internal pressure through osmoregulation, a process in which water, salts and other molecules move across the cell membrane. As a droplet begins to evaporate on the sensor, bacteria cells contained in the droplet detect the increasingly salty environment, triggering emergency valves called osmoregulatory transporters in the cell membrane. The cells then either take in or release water and charged molecules including salts, changing the electrical conductivity of the surrounding fluid in the droplet, which is measured by electrodes. This change in electrical conductivity varies according to whether a bacteria cell is dead or alive and also might be used to identify specific types of bacteria because they use fundamentally different osmoregulatory channels."Aida proved the hypothesis by using genetically mutated cells that do not have those osmoregulatory channels and therefore are less effective in regulating the pressure differential," Alam said.The sensor's surface was designed specifically to maintain the shape of a droplet, which is critical for the technology to work. Two other advances making the sensor possible are the ability to measure the changing electrical conductivity in the droplet and harnessing a cell's osmoregulation as the basis for detection."In the end you want to provide a new tool for medicine and food safety, so you need to be able to quickly identify bacteria and the right antibiotics to treat infection," Alam said. "That requires an understanding of the dynamics of the cell membrane."The technology, which was tested with low concentrations of living and dead forms of E. coli, Salmonella and S. epidermidis bacteria, is said to be label-free because it does not require that samples be treated with fluorescent dyes, making it a potentially practical tool for medicine and food safety. Much of the research was performed at the Birck Nanotechnology Center and Bindley Bioscience Center in Purdue's Discovery Park.Source from by Purdue University 

Research challengeElectrical harvesting is the conversion of freely available ambient energy such as vibrations into electrical power. This power can then be used to supply low-power, autonomous electronic semiconductor systems such as wireless sensor networks used in the energy, transport, aeronautical and military sectors.Energy harvesters can be used to replace batteries in wireless devices reducing the maintenance costs of replacing the millions of batteries that are thrown away each year and enabling these wireless sensors to be placed in inaccessible and hazardous locations.Research at Southampton is leading the way in developing devices that can turn these vibrations into useable energy in a cost-effective, user-friendly way.ContextIn the future energy harvesting is set to play a significant role in the powering of autonomous electronic systems and wireless sensor networks around the globe. Our solutionSouthampton’s research team has been working for more than 15 years on a solution to our growing energy needs. Since their research began they have produced the world’s first piezoelectric vibration energy harvester and high efficiency electromagnetic energy harvesters. Their work has placed them at the forefront of vibration energy harvesting research internationally.Today they continue to lead the research into realising the full potential of vibration energy harvesting.What was the impact?Southampton’s research has spearheaded the development of a multi-million pound industry and enabled large-scale deployment of wireless sensors in the rail network and other industry.In 2004 the Southampton team commercialised its research by launching the spin out company Perpetuum. The company is a global leader in vibration energy harvesting and has already attracted almost £10m in venture capital. It has developed the world’s first practical electromagnetic micro-generator that is capable of delivering enough power to transmit large amounts of data. This wireless sensor system is already monitoring the condition of bearings on hundreds of UK and European trains to improve rail safety and reduce maintenance costs. Its generators have also been used by Shell to help monitor the condition of its gas field equipment in Norway.Southampton’s research has also helped develop international standards, influenced the decisions of funding bodies and raised the profile of energy harvesting among industry and the wider public.  

Learn how to reduce your electricity bill by using the latest kind of energy monitorIn today’s data-centric, energy-conscious age, seeking to reduce your electricity bill and greenhouse gas emissions is quite common. But if you’re trying to decide which device to switch to an energy-efficient mode, how can you figure out which uses the most energy? Trying to compare products’ energy use labels is often fruitless and overly complex, as those actual figures vary depending on how old a product is and how your local climate fares, among other things. However, thanks to MIT’s research and software, a much easier method for determining how much power each device uses is approaching.While developing devices to screen electricity use is not new, MIT’s plans of a stamp-sized energy monitor have some ideal advantages. Involving no complicated installation, the process doesn’t require disconnected wires, and you don’t have to be overly careful when placing sensors over an incoming power line. The system is designed as self-calibrating and processes comprehensive information about voltage and current patterns. Such detailed readings allow one to differentiate every kind of light, motor, and device in the home to determine when certain products are used.MIT’s system is also arranged so that all of this specific information remains within the home and does not run at risk of someone else accessing your power. The research team is also developing customized apps that could provide in-depth analysis of a user’s specific power-related needs. These apps could help the entire system become even more useful, as tests of it have proven successful. Testing has also shown when heating is excessive, as seen with an installation at a military base where large tents were heated during the day despite usually being empty at that time.“For a long time, the premise has been that if we could get access to better information [about energy use], we would be able to create some significant savings,” said Steven Leeb, MIT professor of Electrical Engineering and one of the research paper’s authors. The required information has grown more attainable as the years go by, firstly needing the skill to supervise changes in voltages and current without disabling main power lines to a home or connecting each appliance to a monitoring device. Systems that previously tried to use wireless sensors for determining faint magnetic and electric fields had dubious performance because fields would cancel out each other. MIT found a solution by applying an array of five offset sensors and a calibration system that determines the strongest sensor signal.With this sensor system in place, MIT researchers then had to find a way to analyze data flooding in from the sensors. Because every energy appliance has different performing speeds and voltage variances, a database of these differences is key to understanding products. MIT was able to develop such a catalog of appliances’ “signatures,” then having to display the data in a decipherable way. The team created an interface that permits users to “zoom in” on time segments and explore things such as when a fridge turns on and how often a water heater switches on and off.MIT plans to develop the system commercially, only pricing it at about $25 to $30 per home. As the device is a non-contact sensor, someone could even install it without any outside help. William Singleton, an engineer at the U.S. Army Fort Devens Base Camp Integration Laboratory who wasn’t involved in the experiments, said the system is “an excellent example of how theoretical scientific and mathematical principles can be brought to bear on real world, practical, problem-solving applications. Significant potential savings in fuel, water, and equipment maintenance can be realized.”Source:TechXplore , New Atlas         By Kristen Perrone