Sensors are everywhere: On Mars, in cars and even rubber tree robots – FierceElectronics

With sensors seemingly ubiquitous in machines and electronics, it seems appropriate to celebrate their place in the tech world now that Fierce Electronics is about to kick off Sensors Converge in San Jose, California, a showcase of sensors and related applications.

Did you know that commercial off-the-shelf sensors are being used on Mars to help the inertial guidance system of the small Ingenuity drone helicopter? Thats something coming up Tuesday at Sensors Converge in a video presentation by Havard Grip, pilot of Ingenuity.

Sensors on their own are amazing enough, but engineers are using them inside an array of aerospace and industrial applications. Some consumer applications are equally dazzling, not to mention helpful.

Take the FIXD Sensor, a small device that fits into the OBD2 port under the drivers side dash of cars built after 1996. A connected smartphone app can read out hundreds of error codes, including the dreaded check engine light.

The $20 device first appeared in 2016 and 2.7 million have been sold, FIXD recently said. A premium app for $6 a month has received 100,000 subscribers.

According to the company, co-founders of Atlanta-based FIXD were tired of seeing friends and family stress over the check engine light. Co-founders John Gattuso, Frederick Grimm and Julian Knight were engineering students who met at Georgia Tech.

The FIXD Sensor example makes it easy to see how sensors when combined with processors in applications can be powerful, whether in medical devices, microwave ovens, product manufacturing lines, gas fields or weather satellites.

Sometimes it hard to know where the sensor in an application stops and the processor starts.

In a recent smart farming example, STMicroelectronics announced its STM32WLE5 SoC, the worlds first LoRa SoC, is being used in a robot from CIHEVEA that automates extraction of latex from 200,000 rubber trees on a rubber-tree plantation in Hainan, China.

The robot has two precision motors and a series of environmental sensors that monitor weather, including temperature, air pressure and humidity. While clamped to a rubber tree, the SoC transmits the sensor data to a mesh gateway via a dedicated LoRa network server. That server in turn monitors and coordinates the robots. If conditions are right, the SoC triggers rubber-tapping motors to being autonomous cutting, usually in early morning when the latex sap is rising.

Plantation officials estimate the robot increases latex yield by up to three times while limiting damage to trees and lessening the need for human workers who face dangers doing the tapping work.

As all these examples make clear, sometimes the innovative uses of sensors in applications are so numerous that they can be overlooked and under-appreciated. We dont always see the trees for the forest.

Editor's Note: Sensor Converge starts runs Sept. 21-23 in San Jose, California, and streaming globally. Registration is free.

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Sensors are everywhere: On Mars, in cars and even rubber tree robots - FierceElectronics