Presentation at SSI International 2021 are grouped into 5 key themes which collectively provide complete coverage of the global sensors industry.
If you are interested in speaking at SSI International 2021, please contact info@sensorsinternational.net or call +44 (0)2476 718 970.
In the development of ADAS and AD algorithms, AI is often understood implying NN training and validation. But Artificial Intelligence exceeds by far the domain of NN programming and depending on the use case, NN is not always the best choice. This paper presents State-of-the-Art AI programming and distinguishes cases favoring NN from cases favoring a rule based approach. Application examples like Highway Pilot, City Pilot and Traffic Monitoring are discussed isolating differentiating features requiring different approaches. The paper focuses on pure point clouds from LiDAR as this is the more recent data domain with limited accomplishments in automotive apps.
As the market adopts driver assist features such as Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), autonomous parking, and L2 piloted driving as the entrant point, Frost & Sullivan expects automakers to push L2+ features over next five years, with a forecast to reach over 11 million units by 2025. The need for a low cost, compact, and efficient mid- to long-range Lidar has launched with a range of competing technologies. This presentation will address the need for Lidar versus other sensing technologies, the various implementations of Lidar products, and the introduction of an innovative new type of Lidar solution that combines the best of various solutions into a unique one using MEMS Scanning Mirrors with infrared spatial modulation along with field of view (FOV) meta-surface expander.
The market for high performance inertial sensing systems is approaching $4b as dual use applications proliferate. However, the need for a much lower cost SWaP (Size, Weight and Power) system has also increased and is needed to enable a broad variety of new commercial markets from autonomous vehicles to VR/AR/MR systems to next-gen healthcare/medical devices - all requiring much higher accuracy at much lower costs. In the context of the above, the first chip scale, multi-axis navigation grade capable MEMs inertial measurement unit (IMU) will be described. Other topics covered include: US and Japanese government support of the onshoring of the semiconductor industry, the role of the aerospace/defense industry in support of new technology development in the U.S. and the importance of supporting dual use technologies.
An efficient training of AI systems is heavily relying in the quality and density of data involved. Different imaging modes, with different failure modes, are the optimal solution for reliable and accurate sensng in robotic applications in different environments. However, the complexity and integration of multiple imaging modes including lidar and different types of imagers may be complex. In this talk we will introduce our multimodal imaging unit combining several imaging modes in one single unit enabing seamless change from one imaging mode to the next one and thus more reliable and accurate perception systems.
Both the public and private sectors are increasingly looking to capitalize on the advantages of 3D perception in the context of Smart Cities. In the people flow monitoring space, application developers are turning to 3D LiDAR to either replace legacy sensing technology or to create previously unachievable solutions. Unlike conventional two-dimensional perception technologies, LiDAR generates highly detailed, precise spatial measurements and operates in a variety of environments and contexts, including at night and in direct sunlight. When deployed at scale, LiDAR also provides a significant nontechnical advantage for these applications: no personally identifiable information is ever captured. However, these applications present a number of unique challenges and difficulties, which will be described in detail during this presentation. Additionally, an analysis of various state-of-the-art solutions will take place.
The unique ADAS and AD solutions from LeddarTech enable automotive LiDAR makers to develop the next generation of sensors with accurate, highly reliable solid-state beam steering with an agile field of view and re-configuration capabilities. Solid-State Beam Steering can be seamlessly integrated into an existing LiDAR to expand the field of view while maintaining high resolution. The technology solves a critical industry challenge, allowing LiDAR manufacturers, Tier1/2s and system integrators to maximize the performance of their offerings. Join Robert Baribault in this session to explore the benefits of high-resolution Solid-State Beam Steering in significantly enhancing the performance of LiDAR sensors while reducing size and complexity.
TBA
The pandemic has taught us the value of faster diagnostics, but this is true in many areas of healthcare. Rising cost of healthcare create a drive towards preventive healthcare and Point-of-Care diagnostics with very fast results at low cost. Integrated photonics offers many new options for miniaturized and affordable solutions that are robust and easy to use. The presentation will give an overview of exciting new possibilities and trends.
Digital olfaction mimics the human sense of smell to deliver consistent, objective odor data so companies can transform intangible odor information into business assets that strengthen product offerings and consumer experiences. As the mobility industry offer autonomous fleets, digital olfaction provides a sensor solution to real-time odor assessment of these vehicles. These sensors provide real-time monitoring of vehicle odors to ensure vehicles meet customer expectations while performing malodor monitoring that alert fleet operations of vehicles in need of service. These integrated sensors optimize fleet maintenance while also ensuring the vehicle experience meets customer expectations.
Human blood contains 3000 unique proteins which concentration profiles are powerful diagnostic markers. We are standing at the precipice of a proteomics revolution. Broad protein biomarker screening and machine learning have opened the possibility of understanding and even preventing chronic diseases as well as creating a feedback loop for the improvement of treatments. However, once relevant protein biomarker panels are discovered there is no compact, affordable technology that can longitudinally track how their levels vary in an individual over time. We will show how SiPhox is leveraging the existing CMOS and optical transceiver infrastructure towards the miniaturization and democratization of longitudinal proteomic analysis.
Consumer devices delivering quasi-medical performance are the new frontier to continuously monitor an individual’s health and to effectively deploy techniques for disease prevention. Heart rate and respiration rate are among the most important vital signs to consider in analyzing an individual’s health. Simple and non-invasive solutions are necessary to move forward in deploying everyday health monitoring. By combining an innovative electrostatic sensor, that we call Qvar™, with a MEMS inertial sensor, individuals can obtain reliable heart beat and respiration rate data with using an unprecedentedly small power budget and by reusing commercial electrodes.
Continuous monitoring and treatment of chronic conditions is fast becoming a health and fiscal priority worldwide, although patient adherence levels remain low in many instances. At Tyndall National Institute, our team is developing minimally invasive Micro Transdermal Interface Platforms (MicroTIPs) to address this need. These intelligent, patch-like systems will ultimately be capable of independently diagnosing physiological conditions and autonomously delivering relevant therapeutics, while simultaneously relaying information to clinical personnel and mHealth platforms. This talk outlies examples of progress in key aspects of those platforms, such as microneedle technologies for electrochemical diagnostics, interstitial fluid sampling, biopotential monitoring, and embedded sensors for closed-loop drug delivery.
The sensorization of human activity has led to a flourishing wearables industry. From the need of activity/sports tracking, to music playback and calling, all kinds of wearables have penetrated everyday life. Currently, they are shifting to a consumer healthcare approach, enabling health information collection through various sensors (ECG, SpO2, etc) and fitting in a more Point-of-Care. The Covid-19 pandemic has certainly reactivated the need to find smart solutions for monitoring people far from the hospital, with accurate devices. The consumer and healthcare sectors are closer and closer, and consumer players appear to be winning the battle today by proposing health function with better accuracies. We will present the recent advancements in the $100B wearable industry with a focus on consumerization of healthcare and we will discuss the main sensors used and the associated trends.
Appentra is a Deep Tech company offering the next-generation AI-powered static code analysis platform: Parallelware Analyzer, the first static code analyzer that is designed specifically to boost the performance of C/C++ code. Earlier generations of source code analysis tools are limited to bug detection, coding standard enforcement or security, possibly even a combination of this functionality. While important, nothing is done to ensure that the code is written to take advantage of modern hardware capabilities offered by chip manufacturers in the low-power multicore processors. By using Parallelware Analyzer, leverage the expertise of the senior performance optimization engineers and deliver significantly faster applications, in the order of magnitude of 3x-4x. Clearly, the benefits are huge to C/C++ applications in the scope of mission and business critical industries such as Aerospace, Automotive, Telecommunications, and Semiconductors.
Why not have IIoT sensors transmit high-level, context-aware information instead of raw measurement values? AI based processing of sensor data within sensor modules allows to mitigate cloud connectivity dependencies. Systems are enabled to respond in real-time to events more complex than a simple threshold. Handling of cross-sensitivities and the calibration process can be handled more cost-efficient and also happen adaptively in the field, providing a good reason to investigate AI even for legacy applications. Unfortunately, information security and fault-tolerance become an increasingly important topic for such self-contained Edge AI sensors, with cost requirements demand for resource constraint hardware. The interaction of the distributed AI framework for embedded Systems „AIfES“ with custom computing hardware based the „AIRISC“ family of RISC-V softcores, supported by our rigourous formal safety- and security-by-design approaches can serve as an enabling technology, as will be shown in the process of the talk. Examples will include medical wearables as well as power electronic devices and LIDAR sensors. References: www.airisc.de, www.aifes.de, www.ims.fraunhofer.de
Meanwhile almost no state-of-the-art mobile consumer electronics device exists that does not contain at least one MEMS sensor. From smartphones over tablets and notebooks to smartwatches and hearables, MEMS sensors have taken over important key functions in these devices. MEMS sensors themselves are undergoing continuous development processes to increase performance, reduce power consumption and shrink size. In parallel, more and more new sensor use cases are being developed with and around MEMS sensors. Either by intelligently combining them with other measurement technologies or by applying such leading-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning. In his talk, Wolfgang Schmitt-Hahn, Senior Manager Strategic Marketing at Bosch Sensortec will introduce latest solution examples at different complexity levels, explaining how new technological developments enrich sensor related use cases for CE and IoT devices.
The tomorrows world is networked, communicative and electrified more than ever. Sensors, intelligent packages or e-mobility – all these trends have one thing in common: They are based on flexible circuits or flexible electronics. To produce these trends in-expensively and in quantities, the industry needs methods geared towards this. Roll to roll or roll to sheet is principle the only method to this. In Christian’s talk we will learn about the technology to produce printed electronics as well as hybrid electronics in quantities and cost efficiency.
The convergence of corrosion resistant metal 3D printing and sensors will be covered in this presentation. The harsh environment applications include optical and piezoresistive pressure, strain, Coriolis mass flow and resonant density and binary chemical concentration sensors. In this talk the advantages as well as design and manufacturing challenges of AM will be addressed. MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) wafer processing is now using AM, to fabricate complex micromachined substrates. By using 3D printing, hundreds of traditional MEMS wafer fabrication steps can be eliminated from the typical MEMS wafer process. Adding patterned electrical layers to AM is another technology trend that will be discussed from a sensor application perspective. AM devices and structures are being printed onto devices and patterned sensing and electrical layers are being pattered onto AM+MEMS wafers and standalone AM sensors. The convergence of 3D printing and traditional and MEMS photolithography processes offers new ways to manufacture complex micromachined substrates from new materials like titanium, stainless steel and various plastics with submicron circuit and sensing element features on the MEMS wafer surface. Leveraging the existing MEMS foundry infrastructure with new 3D printed MEMS substrates will open new sensing applications and products in the future.
Project ITER aims to build the largest fusion device in the world, with the goal of demonstrating the scientific and technical feasibility of fusion power. The magnetic diagnostics system in ITER is very critical, since it allows the measuring and controlling in the real time plasma parameters. The magnetic sensor to monitor the instability in the local magnetic field will be installed in a harsh environment characterized by severe neutron radiation, thermal loads, and ultra-high vacuum environment. Reliable diagnostics operation in harsh environments necessitate special material requirements to lower the adverse effects of neutron radiation and heat loads. Magnetic sensors made of ceramic layers with printed thin metallic conductors considered to form a monolithic structure are compatible with this high temperature, vacuum, and neutron radiation conditions. This work describes the development and fabrication of a novel inductive magnetic sensor using Low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) technology to measure the variation in the magnetic field. This work also addresses the mechanical and electrical characterizations performed on the sensor coils that results in the manufacturing of a reliable LTCC sensor for the ITER magnetic inner vessel coil.
Photonic sensors have existed for decades, with well-known advantages for industries with harsh environments. But their adoption is still limited, e.g. due to their price point which is inherent to the complexity of their fabrication and principle of operation. Miraex technology allows to produce a full photonic smart sensing solution using traditional semiconductor fabrication techniques. This can make photonic sensors with millimeter-scale packages at a competitive price point a short-term reality. The first available, intrinsically safe Miraex product is the Polaris - Smart Accelerometer, with applications in e.g. agritech, nuclear and transportation
Airgloss designed a unique gas sensing technology for indoor air quality and environmental monitoring based on an array of proprietary MEMS sensing elements combined with AI algorithms and a state-of-the-art pattern recognition for a continuous and real-time chemical analysis of the indoor air. This allows detection and measurement of a wide range of indoor contaminants including carbon monoxide, VOCs, CO2, NO2, Ozone and natural gas leaks as well as other environmental parameters such as pressure, temperature and humidity, background noise. Each airborne pollutant can be identified by its unique ‘chemical signature’. Initially born as advanced aerospace equipment thanks to a collaboration with NASA, and later on furtherly developed to be affordable for commercial and consumer market, Airgloss products feature a new generation of proprietary sensors, based on advanced MEMS technology. Airgloss has been awarded with the “ESA Space Solutions” trademark, created by ESA to give special recognition to products and services that make use of space technology and space-provided services.
Sensor applications for harsh environment in chemical industry face operation temperatures of up to 900 °C. In cooperation between adSphere GmbH and TU Dresden/IAVT an absolute pressure sensor based on UTG Ultra Thin Glass substrate was developed and manufactured to study the implementation of different technologies with the focus on high-temperature and harsh environment application. The development was done based on the BMBF-project AllMeSa (FKZ 03WKDFA). First tests showed it functional at temperatures up to 450 °C while applying a pressure range of 1 to 5 bar.
System integrators and manufacturers mention that existing machine vision solutions often require long application specific development, complex integration, and significant efforts to get reliable results. Saccade Vision developed a feature-based 3D camera based on a special MEMS scanner for absolute scanning flexibility. The technology adapts image acquisition separately for different elements inside the field of view and achieves selective sub-pixel resolution in 3D. The data acquisition is optimized locally based on the digital model analysis (for example CAD model) of the scanned part. This approach allows automatic application setup directly from CAD drawing resulting in a dramatic improvement in time-to-solution and achieving robust inspection. In this presentation we will demonstrate Saccade’s technology, 3D imaging quality, flexibility, and throughput.
Photonic integrated circuits are a powerful and versatile platform to realize compact, miniaturized, yet high-performance optical sensors for a variety of applications. In this presentation we will discuss the basics of photonic integration, in particular on-chip interferometry and the robust co-integration of optical waveguides with electrical PCBs. Furthermore, we will showcase an overview and use-cases of such photonic sensors used in environmental & industrial applications.
Sensing in the autonomous transport & delivery domain is an exciting field in that it covers such a broad spectrum of things to sense and ways of sensing. MEMS alone based mostly on silicon - but also increasingly on piezo materials - already cover a wide range of applications like high precision pressure sensors for barometers and altimeters, ultrasonic transducers and sonars for 3D sensing as well as inertial sensors for reliable indoor/outdoor positioning systems and navigation assistance. In the field of photonics too, sensing covers an extremely rich domain going from image sensors in the of visible or SWIR spectrum to LiDARs, including 3D short range/long range sensing systems just to give a few examples. This large diversity is also calling for competitive solutions for high quality electronic materials enabling optimum PPAC (power, performance, area and cost) figures. In this paper, we will review new developments of engineered substrates for sensing for applications such as autonomous transport & delivery, including thin film piezo on silicon, thin film silicon on cavities and large diameter (200-300mm) III-V materials like InP on silicon substrates.
Sensing applications take a big step forward, thanks to a photonic chip spectrometer that delivers the performance of a table-top laboratory instrument and fits in 5 square millimeters. We selected a 4-channel configuration hybrid GaSb/SOI sensor to demonstrate the promise of our technology, because this provides a spectrometer that is suitable for many applications. For instance, applications involving the sensing of liquid-phase objects, such as fluids or tissue, require a large spectral bandwidth. Typically, a bandwidth between 200 nm and 300 nm is sufficient for monitoring one or more molecules with absorption in the same spectral region. With our spectral region of choice, spanning 1850 nm to 2450 nm, we can cover various molecules, including glucose, lactate, urea, ethanol, lactose, albumin, cholesterol, milk fat and milk protein.
Today’s sensor devices exhibit a high level of integration to meet the required performance and reliability. Many emerging applications need to combine different disciplines such as photonics, biomedical and nanotechnology at the device-level, pushing the demands even further. To cope with the higher system complexity and still reduce footprint, power consumption and cost, wafer-level processing is the most efficient integration method. Wafer bonding, for example, is one of the key technologies driving advances in system integration. This presentation will discuss the requirements and capabilities of such semiconductor processing solutions for next generation sensor devices.
