In praise of measurement

The government must recognize the importance of accurate measurements.

By Rick Nelson, Editor in Chief -- Test & Measurement World, 7/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

E-mail

If you want to control something, start by being able to measure it. It's good news that measuring things is becoming easier and easier. Microelectronic sensors are emerging that can measure key biological and environmental parameters.

Speaking May 25 at the International Microwave Symposium, Greg Peters, VP and GM of the component test division of Agilent Technologies, cited the geometric growth in edge devices—that is, devices that touch the real world. Edge devices, he said, account for billions of dollars in sales and serve applications including security, health, and environmental monitoring.

Edge devices enable what might be called "the Internet of Things," which, writing in the May 27 issue of EDN, technical editor Margery Conner described as "... the networked interconnection of objects—from the sophisticated to the mundane—through identifiers such as sensors, RFID tags, and IP addresses." She continued, "Sensors form the edge of the electronics ecosystem, in which the physical world interacts with computers, providing a richer array of data than is available from keyboards and mouse inputs. Currently, someone at a keyboard has input most of the information on the Internet. We are at an inflection point, however, at which more Internet data originates through sensors than keyboards."

A host of low-power, low-cost sensors must emerge to drive through this inflection point, and the many that are available now will soon be joined by others. Quantities like pressure and acceleration have long been amenable to measurement by microelectronic sensors. And last month, IMEC added a sense of smell to the capabilities of microelectronics devices with the debut of its electronic nose. Speaking June 7 at the IMEC Technology Forum at IMEC affiliate Holst Centre in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Mercedes Crego-Calama, principal researcher at Holst Centre/IMEC and program director for the Holst Centre's HUMAN++ program, described the e-nose as a MEMS bridge that acquires extra mass in the presence of volatile chemical vapors, changing its piezoelectric characteristics.

Conner writing in EDN estimated that with infrastructure and personal-device sensors combined, manufacturers will develop and deploy what amounts to about 1000 sensors per person over the next 10 years. That's a lot of welcome measurement power.

Post your comments at www.tmworld.com/blog. To read past "Editor's Note" columns, go to www.tmworld.com/editorsnote.

Unfortunately, there is one area in which measurement has not been given its due, and that's with regard to the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The New York Times on May 13 quoted Kent Wells, a BP senior VP, as saying, "There's just no way to measure it." The US government was little better, putting out a woefully low estimate of 5000 barrels per day. The Times noted that Ian R. MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University, had made his own rough calculations suggesting that the leak could "easily be four or five times" the government estimate. He added, "The government has a responsibility to get good numbers. If it's beyond their technical capability, the whole world is ready to help them."

Let's hope the government hears that message.