Sensors Archives - Liwaiwai

Technology

MIT Engineers Develop Sensors For Face Masks That Help Gauge Fit

Wearing a mask can help prevent the spread of viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, but a mask’s effectiveness depends on how well it fits. Currently, there are no simple ways to measure the fit of a mask, but a new sensor developed at MIT could make it much easier to ensure a good fit. The sensor, which measures physical contact between the mask and the wearer’s face, can be applied to any kind of mask. Using this sensor, the researchers analyzed the fit of surgical masks on male and female subjects, and found that overall, the masks fit women’s faces much…

Technology

MIT System “Sees” The Inner Structure Of The Body During Physical Rehab

Around three quarters of years lived with disability are conditions that could benefit from physical rehabilitation – but there aren’t enough physical therapists (PT) to go around. The growing need is racing alongside population growth, and aging as well as higher rates of severe ailments, even within the same age group, are contributing to the problem. An upsurge in sensor-based techniques, such as on-body motion sensors, has provided some autonomy and precision for patients. Still, the minimalist watches and rings largely rely on motion data, therefore lacking the more holistic picture a PT pieces together, including muscle engagement and tension, in addition…

Engineers Fabricate A Chip-Free, Wireless Electronic “Skin”

Wearable sensors are ubiquitous thanks to wireless technology that enables a person’s glucose concentrations, blood pressure, heart rate, and activity levels to be transmitted seamlessly from sensor to smartphone for further analysis. Most wireless sensors today communicate via embedded Bluetooth chips that are themselves powered by small batteries. But these conventional chips and power sources will likely be too bulky for next-generation sensors, which are taking on smaller, thinner, more flexible forms. Now MIT engineers have devised a new kind of wearable sensor that communicates wirelessly without requiring onboard chips or batteries. Their design, detailed today in the journal Science, opens…

New Programmable Materials Can Sense Their Own Movements

MIT researchers have developed a method for 3D printing materials with tunable mechanical properties, that sense how they are moving and interacting with the environment. The researchers create these sensing structures using just one material and a single run on a 3D printer. To accomplish this, the researchers began with 3D-printed lattice materials and incorporated networks of air-filled channels into the structure during the printing process. By measuring how the pressure changes within these channels when the structure is squeezed, bent, or stretched, engineers can receive feedback on how the material is moving. The method opens opportunities for embedding sensors…

Technology

Stanford Engineers Enable Simple Cameras To See In 3D

Standard image sensors, like the billion or so already installed in practically every smartphone in use today, capture light intensity and color. Relying on common, off-the-shelf sensor technology – known as CMOS – these cameras have grown smaller and more powerful by the year and now offer tens-of-megapixels resolution. But they’ve still seen in only two dimensions, capturing images that are flat, like a drawing – until now. Researchers at Stanford University have created a new approach that allows standard image sensors to see light in three dimensions. That is, these common cameras could soon be used to…

Technology

A Fabric That “Hears” Your Heartbeat

Having trouble hearing? Just turn up your shirt. That’s the idea behind a new “acoustic fabric” developed by engineers at MIT and collaborators at Rhode Island School of Design. The team has designed a fabric that works like a microphone, converting sound first into mechanical vibrations, then into electrical signals, similarly to how our ears hear. All fabrics vibrate in response to audible sounds, though these vibrations are on the scale of nanometers — far too small to ordinarily be sensed. To capture these imperceptible signals, the researchers created a flexible fiber that, when woven into a fabric, bends with…

New Face Mask Prototype Can Detect Covid-19 Infection

Engineers at MIT and Harvard University have designed a novel face mask that can diagnose the wearer with Covid-19 within about 90 minutes. The masks are embedded with tiny, disposable sensors that can be fitted into other face masks and could also be adapted to detect other viruses. The sensors are based on freeze-dried cellular machinery that the research team has previously developed for use in paper diagnostics for viruses such as Ebola and Zika. In a new study, the researchers showed that the sensors could be incorporated into not only face masks but also clothing such as lab coats,…

‘Eye In The Sky’ Sensors Reduce Stress Of In-Home Dementia Care

People caring around the clock for a parent, spouse or other loved one with dementia are at a high risk for clinical anxiety, depression, social isolation and even suicidal ideation, according to longitudinal research from UC Berkeley. But thanks to a blend of artificial intelligence (AI) and behavioral science, relief may be on the horizon. UC Berkeley psychologists have joined forces with People Power, a home healthcare tech company, to install networks of sensors that hook up to AI and smartphone technology in the homes of some 350 dementia patients nationwide. “The sensors are designed to provide a sort of…

Sensor Can Detect Scarred Or Fatty Liver Tissue

About 25 percent of the U.S. population suffers from fatty liver disease, a condition that can lead to fibrosis of the liver and, eventually, liver failure. Currently there is no easy way to diagnose either fatty liver disease or liver fibrosis. However, MIT engineers have now developed a diagnostic tool, based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), that could be used to detect both of those conditions. “Since it’s a noninvasive test, you could screen people even before they have obvious symptoms of compromised liver, and you would be able to say which of these patients had fibrosis,” says Michael…

Artificial Intelligence

Why A Computer Will Never Be Truly Conscious

Many advanced artificial intelligence projects say they are working toward building a conscious machine, based on the idea that brain functions merely encode and process multisensory information. The assumption goes, then, that once brain functions are properly understood, it should be possible to program them into a computer. Microsoft recently announced that it would spend US$1 billion on a project to do just that. So far, though, attempts to build supercomputer brains have not even come close. A multi-billion-dollar European project that began in 2013 is now largely understood to have failed. That effort has shifted to look more like…

Input your search keywords and press Enter.