Sensor

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a tiny new sensor that can be carried around on a small drone or even the back of an insect – and then dropped on demand to track the environment for years at a time.

Scientists have developed what they claim is the smallest particle sensor in the world, designed specifically to detect harmful pollutants and offer a highly localized picture of air quality by being integrated into wearables and mobile devices.

To create a great smartphone camera, first you need a great mobile camera sensor, and Samsung just unveiled a new 50-megapixel, 1/1.31-inch Isocell GN1 sensor – a component that should find its way into future Samsung phones before too long.

Scientists at Purdue University are putting forward another interesting proposition in the realm of home automation, developing a cheap sensor that can detect when a person enters a room via carbon dioxide levels in the air.

OmniVision has announced that its OV6948 unit has been declared the world's smallest commercially available image sensor by Guinness World Records. And the company has now squeezed it into a new camera module.

Given that the WHO estimates that seven million premature deaths annually around the world are caused by air pollution, monitoring air quality is vital. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have developed an optical nano-sensor that can be mounted to most streetlamps.

Spider-Man's "spidey-sense" isn't purely fiction – spiders have tiny, sensitive hairs on their legs that help them avoid predators or hunt prey. And now, engineers at Purdue University have developed similar sensors for autonomous cars or drones.

In what promises to be a big step forward in 3D vision systems for autonomous vehicles, Velodyne has announced a new 128-channel LiDAR sensor that boasts the longest range and highest-resolution on the market.

It could only have come from Japan. From the country that gave the world smart toilets comes a device that saves users from being socially ostracized by telling them whether or not they smell.

The firm behind the sensor of the Leica M has developed a 48-megapixel CMOS offering with a global shutter. In addition to being suited to shooting fast-moving objects without distortion, the CMV50000 from CMOSIS, can also support 8K video resolutions at 30 fps.

​New ways of tracking the contents of our sweat has opened up some exciting possibilities in health monitoring, and alcohol sensors are a part of this mix. But a new flexible, tattoo-like sensor developed by US researchers might be the most discreet one we've seen yet.

​British defense and aerospace company BAE Systems is looking to revolutionize how we measure airspeed, replacing conventional, air-pressure-based systems with tech that bounces around ultraviolet lasers to get the job done.​