Now, however, scientists at the University of Montreal report that they have developed an efficient technique for producing cone cells from human embryonic stem cells.
leaving open a default pathway that led to photoreceptor genesis. The scientists detailed their work in the journal Development,
is the culmination of years of work. Bernier has been interested in the genes that code and enable the induction of the retina during embryonic development
Indeed, bioinformatic analysis led him to predict the existence of a mysterious protein: COCO, a"recombinational"human molecule that is normally expressed within photoreceptors during their development.
The Bernier laboratory current work has established that Coco (Dand5), a member of the Cerberus gene family, is expressed in the developing and adult mouse retina. pon exposure to recombinant COCO,
human embryonic stem cells (hescs) differentiated into S-cone photoreceptors, developed an inner segment-like protrusion,
Beyond the clinical applications, Dr. Bernier's findings could enable the modeling of human retinal degenerative diseases through the use of induced pluripotent stem cells,
offering the possibility of directly testing potential avenues for therapy on the patient's own tissues. ur work, the Development article concluded, rovides a unique platform to produce human cones for developmental, biochemical,
and therapeutic studies
#Malaria Protein as a Cancer drug Delivery Tool The devastating global effects of malaria have been documented widely,
but the presentation of the disease during pregnancy is particular troubling and confounding to researchers.
Women living in endemic areas face a much greater risk of contracting malaria when they are associated pregnant,
and complications once infected with the parasite. While an average adult residing within a malaria endemic region possesses some immunity to the parasite, pregnancy causes complications that leave women and fetuses extremely vulnerable.
In particular, the most virulent species of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum modifies human erythrocytes upon invasion
affording the parasite time to grow out of site from the immune system. Some these parasite-derived red blood cell surface proteins have an affinity for carbohydrate residues found on the surface of cells lining blood vessels.
Surprisingly, this same residue has been seen to cluster on the surface of various cancers. Now a collaborative team of researchers from the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGEN), University of Copenhagen, University of British columbia (UBC), Vancouver Coastal Health and the BC Cancer Agency, found that the malaria protein,
called VAR2CSA, could be used to target anticancer drugs and carry them to tumors expressing the specific carbohydrate residue."
"Based on our clinical data, we helped validate that this could be applied to melanoma and lung cancers,"explained co-author Nhan Tran, Ph d.,associate professor in TGEN's Cancer and Cell biology Division."
"This specific type of developmental proteinncofetal chondroitin sulfates expressed in the placenta, and is expressed also in lung cancer and melanoma."
"The findings from this study were published recently in Cancer cell through an article entitled argeting Human Cancer by a Glycosaminoglycan Binding Malaria Protein."
"Scientists have spent decades trying to find biochemical similarities between placenta tissue and cancer, but we just didn't have the technology to find it,"noted project leader Mads Daugaard, Ph d.,assistant professor of urologic science at UBC and a senior research scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre, part of the Vancouver Coastal
Health Research Institute.""When my colleagues discovered how malaria uses VAR2CSA to embed itself in the placenta,
we immediately saw its potential to deliver cancer drugs in a precise, controlled way to tumors."
"The researchers created a recombinant VAR2CSA protein that was fused with either diphtheria toxin or conjugated to hemiasterlin (a microtubule inhibitor) and saw strong inhibition of tumor cell growth and metastasis in vivo."
"This is an extraordinary finding that paves the way for targeting sugar molecules in pediatric and adulthood human cancer,
and our groups are vigorously pursuing this possibility together, "said co-senior investigator Poul Sorensen, M d.,Ph d.,UBC professor of pathology and laboratory medicine.
The researchers were excited by their findings and are currently working with pharmaceutical companies to develop the compound for clinical trial in humans."
"There is some irony that a disease as destructive as malaria might be exploited to treat another dreaded disease,"stated lead author Ali Salanti, Ph d.,professor of immunology and microbiology in the Centre for Medical Parasitology, at the University
of Copenhagen o
#New chip could turn phone cameras into high-res 3d scanners As if smartphones can't already do enough,
soon they may be able to scan three-dimensional objects and send the resultant high-resolution 3d images to a 3d printer that produces hyper-accurate replicas.
This comes thanks to a small and inexpensive device called a nanophotonic coherent imager (NCI),
which was developed by scientists at Caltech. The NCI could add 3d imaging to a variety of other devices and applications such as improving motion sensitivity in human machine interfaces and driverless cars.
and distance at each pixel of the part of a scene or object that it represents.
while at the same time the NCI's tiny size just 300 microns across in their 16-pixel proof of concept makes possible incorporation into even very small devices.
The current limitation of 16 coherent pixels did not stop the researchers from imaging the front face of an American one-cent coin from half a meter (1. 5 ft) away with a method that scanned in four
-by-four pixel increments. The researchers see broad applications for their device, which they believe could easily be scaled up to house arrays of hundreds of thousands of pixels
which is closer to what would be required in real-world high-resolution 3d imaging through a camera lens.
robotics, gesture recognition, biomedical imaging, personal electronics, and more. A paper describing the research was published in the journal Optics Express E
#New biosensing platform extends reach of disease diagnosis Researchers at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) have created a cheap and simple biosensing platform that is able to detect the presence of various types of harmful bacteria
When used in conjunction with a smartphone, the system offers the potential of diagnosing diseases in remote locations from anywhere in the world.
The way the system works is pretty similar to your standard PH test. Patients place a drop of blood from a finger prick
or a bit of saliva on a small plastic film that has a piece of cellulose plastic on it.
If the particular type of virus (eg. HIV) or bacteria (E-coli Staphylococcus aureas, etc) the film has been designed to detect are present,
Patients can then snap a shot of the film with their smartphone camera and send it off to a medical professional for analysis,
wherever in the world they may be. While the technology could be developed useful in countries, it could be life-changing for developing countries that don have ready access to medical centers and equipment."
"There is a dire need for robust, portable, disposable and inexpensive biosensing platforms for clinical care,
especially in developing countries with limited resources,"says Waseem Asghar, Ph d.,assistant professor of electrical engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer science at FAU,
long-term it could have a tremendous impact on the diagnosis and monitoring of infectious diseases worldwide, especially in low and middle-income countries.
and affordability means the technology could also find applications in drug development, food safety, environmental monitoring and veterinary medicine.
#Inkjet printers could produce paper sensors that identify dangerous food and water contaminants Sensors that identify infectious disease
and food contaminants may soon be printed on paper using ordinary office inkjet printers. Researchers at Mcmaster University have developed a prototype that could lead to a commercial product in the next few years which helps doctors
and scientists in the field quickly detect certain types of cancer or bacterial and respiratory infections or monitor toxin levels in water.
The new paper-based technology builds on prior work by the same team. In 2012 they used specialized inkjet printers to produce paper strips that change color in the presence of E coli.
The strips detected a particular enzyme inside the bacteria and so were limited to only that one use.
The new technology is far more versatile. Like its predecessor, it can detect E coli, but it can also identify other bacteria such as Salmonella and Clostridium difficile.
Its versatility comes from a change in underlying technology. The new strips use small man-made DNA molecules called DNA aptamers.
The new sensors are also much simpler to produce.""Our original E coli sensor required a very sophisticated ink jet-printer printer
and very specialized inks in order to be produced, "Brennan told Gizmag.""We have found that these specialized requirements have made scale up
and a basic office printer to produce the test strips, meaning that it should be much easier to scale up and manufacture."
"The researchers came up with a biochemical processing method that allows them to generate very large DNA molecules with many thousands of nucleotides.
which is a marker for cancer, "Brennan explained.""We can print the letter'A'for ATP and'P'for PDGF,
"The researchers foresee their paper strips helping doctors to quickly diagnose illnesses and scientists to inspect food or environments for toxins.
Brennan notes, however, that they cannot currently test drinking water because an additional regulatory requirement to detect"culturable organisms"(organisms that can grow
Their current detection sensitivity is more in line with the needs of beaches, swimming pools, and other recreational water facilities.
they say that it could find hundreds of possible applications in fields where quick answers about the presence of pathogens could save lives.
#MIT's acoustic tumor cell sorting method is now up to 20 times faster A team of researchers from MIT,
Pennsylvania State university and Carnegie mellon University has announced key improvements to its acoustic wave-harnessing cell sorting method unveiled last year.
meaning that each cell encounters several pressure nodes during its passage. As a cell comes into contact with each node,
using data collected during testing to adjust the height and width of the channel, as well as the tilt angle of the transducers,
The team also tested the improved method on blood samples obtained from three breast cancer patients, isolating one, eight and 59 tumor cells.
"With further improvement in cell throughput, this work could offer a useful new tool, for both basic research into the complex topic of circulating tumor cells
and for clinical assessment of different types of cancer,"said Carnegie mellon president Subra Suresh. With the speed improvements in mind, the method is now approaching a state viable for widespread medical use.
Its ability to process samples without damaging them allows for further study of the cancerous cells following the sorting process,
representing a significant advantage over existing methods o
#Flexible, fast-charging aluminum-ion battery offers safer alternative to lithium-ion Researchers at Stanford university have created a fast-charging and long-lasting rechargeable battery that is inexpensive to produce,
and which they claim could replace many of the lithium-ion and alkaline batteries powering our gadgets today.
The prototype aluminum-ion battery is also safer, not bursting into flames as some of its lithium-ion brethren are wont to do.
The prototype battery features an anode made of aluminum, a cathode of graphite and an ionic liquid electrolyte,
all packed within a flexible, polymer-coated pouch. And unlike lithium-ion batteries which can short circuit
and explode or catch fire when punctured, the aluminum-ion battery will actually continue working for a short
while before not bursting into flames.""The electrolyte is basically a salt that's liquid at room temperature,
so it's very safe, "said Stanford graduate student Ming Gong, co-lead author of the study.
Improved safety is great, but what many people want is a reduction in recharge times.
The aluminum-ion battery hits the target here, too, with the Stanford team claiming"unprecedented charging times"of just one minute for recharging the prototype battery.
What about durability? The aluminum-ion battery has covered you there, too. Unlike typical lithium-ion batteries that last around 1, 000 charge-discharge cycles,
or other aluminum-ion battery lab attempts that usually died after just 100 cycles, the Stanford researchers claim their battery stood up to 7, 500 cycles without a loss of capacity.
This would make it attractive for storing renewable energy on the electrical grid.""The grid needs a battery with a long cycle life that can rapidly store
and release energy, "team member Hongjie Dai explains.""Our latest unpublished data suggest that an aluminum battery can be recharged tens of thousands of times.
It's hard to imagine building a huge lithium-ion battery for grid storage.""The experimental battery also has added the advantage of flexibility,
which gives the technology the potential to find applications in the burgeoning field of flexible electronics.
Furthermore, the researchers point out that aluminum is a cheaper metal than lithium, and the aluminum-ion technology offers an environmentally friendly alternative to disposable AA
and AAA alkaline batteries used to power millions of portable devices. Currently, one of the prototype battery's biggest shortcomings is its voltage.
Although Dai points out it is more than anyone else has achieved with aluminum, the battery only generates around two volts of electricity,
which is around half that of a typical lithium-ion battery. However, the researchers are confident they can improve on this."
"Improving the cathode material could eventually increase the voltage and energy density,"says Dai.""Otherwise, our battery has everything else you'd dream that a battery should have:
inexpensive electrodes, good safety, high-speed charging, flexibility and long cycle life. I see this as a new battery in its early days.
It's quite exciting.""The team's work is detailed in a paper published in the online edition of Nature
and the battery can be seen in action in the video below. Source: Stanford Universit t
#"Smart"facade keeps offices from overheating, without using any electricity Office buildings with plate glass windows may provide a nice view for workers,
but they're certainly not ideal when it comes to energy-efficiency. Among other things, the sunlight that pours through them can raise the temperature in the office,
causing the air conditioning to come on. Now, however, researchers from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Machine tools and Forming Technology have created a light-blocking facade for such windows that only kicks in
when exposed to strong sunlight and it's powered by that sunlight, too. The facade was developed via a collaboration between Fraunhofer and the Weissensee School of art in Berlin.
Based on a concept by design student Bára Finnsdottir, it's composed of an array of circular flower-like components.
Each one of those components contains a disc of fabric, with wires made from a nickel-titanium alloy running through it.
That alloy is a shape-memory material this means that although it will stay in a shape that it's been bent into
when temperatures are cooler, it will temporarily revert to its original shape when heated. In the case of the facade
that heat comes from direct sunlight. When that light heats the wires, they respond by reverting to a shape that draws the fabric discs closed,
thus keeping the light from getting through the glass. Once the sun goes down or clouds roll in,
however, the wires return to their previous shape and the discs open back up, making the facade transparent once again.
According to Fraunhofer, the facade could be retrofitted to existing windows, either on the surface of the glass or between the panes (in the case of double-paned windows).
The light-blocking components could be made in a variety of shapes and sizes, while the complete facades could also be made to only cover a specific part of a window,
if that was all that was needed. Led by André Bucht, the researchers are additionally exploring the possibilities of using the facade to store thermal energy during the day
and then release it at night, or to generate electricity via flexible solar cells. A working prototype of the technology will be on display from Apr 13 to 17, at the Hannover Messe industrial trade show d
#Amazon to begin testing new delivery drones in the US Last month it emerged that the Federal aviation administration (FAA) had granted Amazon permission to begin testing a delivery drone prototype for its Prime Air service,
a venture that aims to transport packages to Amazon customers in under 30 minutes. But there was a hitch,
with the company since revealing the vehicle cleared for use had already become obsolete. Things are now back on track with the FAA giving Amazon the green light to put its current models to the test.
Amazon first took steps to win the blessing of the authorities in July last year
when it petitioned the FAA for permission to begin testing its drones. But the agency's response was hardly swift,
finally granting an"experimental airworthiness certificate"to Amazon in March 2015. The slow progress partnered with the now-evident worthlessness of the permit prompted Amazon to carry out testing of its more sophisticated models abroad,
namely at a secret Canadian site only 2, 000 ft (610 m) from the US border.
By way of a letter to Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of Global Public Policy, on Wednesday April 8, the FAA has granted the company's request for exemption.
This will clear the way for Amazon to begin testing its drones outdoors in the United states. The exemption dictates that Amazon's drones fly no higher than 400 ft (122 m),
no faster than 100 mph (161 km h) and remain within the pilot's line of sight, among a raft of other conditions relating to safety and maintenance.
These rules are consistent with a set of proposed guidelines around commercial drone flight that the FAA floated earlier in the year.
While it marks another step toward the realization of Amazon's ambitious drone delivery plan,
there's still a long way to go before quadcopters are dropping parcels in your front yard.
The most obvious obstacle Amazon faces is convincing the FAA that drones can be flown safely beyond the line of sight.
that or it resorts to delivering packages only to buildings and people within a few hundred meters of its warehouses.
It plans to shoot autonomous drones along 10 mi (16 km) long skyways at 50 mph (80.5 km h) with packages weighing up to 55 lb (25 kg) in tow.
#IBM sets new tape storage record For many people, tape memory is a dead technology found only on reel-to-reel computers in old 1960s movies.
and a new breakthrough by IBM Research and Fuji Film has produced a low-cost particulate magnetic tape with a record density of 123 billion bits of uncompressed data per square inch,
When the first half-inch-wide computer tape was invented in 1952, it had about 2 megabytes per reel of storage.
Previously the main storage medium was punch cards, but the development of electronic computers produced machines that soon operated at the limits of the speed of punch card systems.
but even in the 1950s, the speed that tapes had to run was more than the plastic could handle without stretching or tearing,
and magnetic readers were developed so the tapes could run back and forth quickly without putting too much strain on the plastic.
Over the years, hard drives, CDS, DVDS, and solid state memory came along, but tape is still very much a mainstream technology used in backups, disaster replicas,
video, archiving and other renditions, with over 500 exabytes of data currently on tape. The new IBM tape has an areal density 110,000, 000 times greater than IBM s first tape drive,
which could result in a hand-sized tape cartridge that holds the equivalent of 220 terabytes of data.
IBM compares this to 220 million books that would need 2, 200 km (1, 367 mi) of bookshelf.
The new tape is the result of 13 years of work on a high-density barium ferrite tape combined with new control technology for read write-heads heads involving advanced servo control technologies
a high bandwidth head actuator, and a set of tape-speed, optimized, H-infinity, track-follow controllers that place the head within 6 nanometers;
allowing a track density of 181,300 tracks per inch. This new recording medium combined with noise-predictive detection technology makes possible an ultra-narrow 90 nm-wide Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) reader.
IBM sees the new tape technology as having applications in big data and cloud computing at a cost of pennies per gigabyte.
One example of this is the company s Openstack Swift, which lets users inexpensively migrate cold data to a highly durable cloud based storage tier.
A research prototype of the new tape drive is on display at the 2015 National Association Broadcasters Show.
The video below discusses the new IBM storage tape. Source: IB B
#Modified Salmonella eats away at cancer, without a side order of food poisoning Though generally a bacteria we'd associate with a severe bout of food poisoning,
previous research has suggested that Salmonella needn't always bring bad news and stomach cramps. Certain strains have been shown to kill off cancer cells,
but to use them as a form of treatment for humans without inducing any nasty side effects has so far proven difficult.
But now, researchers have developed genetically modified salmonella that turns toxic only after it enters a tumor.
A team of researchers from Germany's Helmholtz Center for Infection Research and Arizona State university worked with a strain known as Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium.
This strain has been demonstrated to colonize tumors and attack the cancer cells. It was the group's thinking that altering part of the bacteria's outer membrane called the lipopolysaccharide structure (LPS) could serve to improve its safety.
This is because LPS is one of the primary causes for sepsis, a condition that sees inflammation spread throughout the body that can lead to organ failure and death.
Through genetic engineering, the scientists were able to remove genes integral to the synthesis of the LPS.
They then tested variants of the newly modified Salmonella strains both in the lab with human cancer cells and in mice with tumors.
They discovered that one in particular was effective at destroying cancer cells and shrinking the tumors when injected into the mice,
without the typical negative impacts on the surrounding healthy cells. This ability to transform from a harmless bacteria to a ruthless destroyer of all things cancerous
when it arrives at the tumor is attributed to how Salmonella develops in different environments. In regular cells, Salmonella will divide only once or twice each day,
while inside a tumor it divides hourly.""This transition from a benign, invasive Salmonella that doesn't hurt normal cells to the toxic type occurs very rapidly (time wise) in the tumor due to the very rapid growth
and cell division that occurs when Salmonella enters a tumor, "says Dr. Roy Curtiss, one of the study's researchers and Professor of Microbiology at Arizona State university.
Curtiss says that when the technique finds it way into human trials, it will most likely be used in conjunction with chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
The research was published in the journal American Society for Microbiology y
#"Google maps for the Body"zooms in from whole organs down to individual cells The algorithms used for zooming in
and out on Google maps and Google street view have made it possible to visually traverse through layers of the body starting with a whole joint and drilling all the way down to the cellular level.
The new imaging system could have huge implications in medicine because it drastically reduces the time required to analyze
and compare data. The system draws on the combined expertise and technology of University of New south wales (UNSW) professor Melissa Knothe Tate
Google, Brown and Stanford universities, Cleveland Clinic, and optics and medical device manufacturer Zeiss. It uses imaging technology originally developed to scan for defects in silicon wafers,
and with help from Google's Maps algorithms the researchers can zoom and pan through a whole organ or tissue joint all the way down to individual cells.
Unlike Google's Body Browser, which visualizes the layers of the body in three-dimensional rendered graphics,
this so-called"Google maps for the Body"uses real images that get seamlessly stitched together and layered on top of each other."
"For the first time we have the ability to go from the whole body down to how the cells are getting their nutrition
and how this is all connected, "said Professor Knothe Tate.""This could open the door to as yet unknown new therapies and preventions."
"Knothe Tate has used already the system to demonstrate a link in osteoarthritic guinea pigs between disease status and molecular transport through blood, muscle, and bone.
The condition appears to be the result of a breakdown in cellular communication. Understanding how this signalling should work,
and where it goes wrong, could unlock a range of treatments such as physical therapies and preventative exercises.
You can learn more about the imaging system in the video below and try it out for yourself on a human hip bone on UNSW's Mechbio site i
#Overview of a Smart Optical Time-of-Flight Sensor Technology With billions of sensors already being deployed in all types of devices and applications,
the sensor revolution is well underway. Through the Internet of things (Iot) and the Internet of Everything (Ioe), smart sensors have the potential to significantly help our societies resolve countless global challenges.
In order to do so in a timely manner, major advancements are required in the development of ultra-efficient sensors.
Figure 1. Signal travelling through the main components of a Leddar sensing modulefigure 2. Emission beam pattern and match to a 16-element photodetectorfigure 3. Sample trace
where the x-axis is a time axis, scaled into distance, and the y-a...Figure 4. Example of wide beam and different detection zones produced by the multi-element...
View all Sensors are linked very closely to the Iot, as its core function is to collect valuable data.
Fundamentally, what makes a smart sensor"smart"is its onboard signal/data-processing capabilities. Through the Iot, large amounts of quality, sensor-based data can be collected at any time and from anywhere,
and it can then be transmitted over a network in real time. This provides enhanced awareness of our immediate or remote environment, bringing forth opportunities for faster and better decision-making,
as well as gains in efficiency and productivity. The new generation of ultra-efficient smart sensors requires key characteristics such as small size
low cost, low power consumption, low bandwidth consumption, and high reliability. And this is precisely what Leddar technology has achieved.
Based on almost a decade of relentless research, this unique solution breaks the mold for what's possible in detection and ranging applications, providing a smarter alternative to inefficient sensing solutions and setting the stage for large scale deployments.
Leddar Technology Overview Leddar (acronym for light-emitting diode detection and ranging) is patented a sensing technology developed by Leddartech,
a successful spin-off of Canada's leading optics and photonics research institute, Institut national d'optique (INO).
The main innovation behind this new approach lies in the superior signal processing that drives every Leddar sensor.
Combined with the use of visible or infrared LEDS to perform time-of-flight measurements,
Leddar technology provides continuous, rapid and accurate detection and ranging, without any moving parts. What Makes It Better?
Contrary to collimated emitters (lasers), the Leddar sensor's LEDS and emitter optics are used to create a diffuse beam covering a wider area of interest.
The receiver collects the backscatter of the reflected light from objects in the beam and, using full-waveform analysis,
detects the presence of objects in each segment of the beam, measuring the distance of the detected objects (based on the time taken by the light to return to the sensor).
Accumulation and oversampling techniques are used to maximize range, accuracy and precision. Leddar technology also allows for a high level of versatility,
and a wide range of optics options are available for the sensor modules, providing a variety of beam patterns for different needs.
For example, in response to current needs, the technology is presently being offered in the form of two main adaptable platforms:
1) a small and cost-effective single-element module, which provides a narrow, yet diffuse beam that is particularly suitable for applications like level sensing, proximity detection, etc.,
or multiple sensors. This unique sensing technology presents multiple advantages. The use of a diffuse light beam increases the detection robustness of specular surfaces.
Aligning the sensor is also easier, which results in fast and simple installation. Additionally, the multi-element receiver provides detection
and ranging for multiple segments of the beam without the need to scan (no moving parts).
Time-of-Flight Principle Leddar sensors use LEDS to generate very short light pulses, typically 100,000 pulses per second.
The time-of-flight (Tof) principle essentially consists in measuring the time taken by a light pulse to travel from the sensor to a remote object
and to return to the sensor. The range R of the detected object is deduced from the measured full round-trip time T of the light pulse using the simple relation R c T/2 n
where c is the speed of light in vacuum and n denotes the refractive index of the medium in which the light pulse propagates.
This causes different irradiances of the echo pulse at the receiver, which are measured by the Leddar sensor.
This measured irradiance depends on the distance measured by the Tof principle and the angle of incidence that can be determined by imaging-collecting optics that focus the reflected beam on the sensor photodetectors.
A 16-element photodetector is used typically in Leddar sensors (shown in Figure 1). Figure 1. Signal travelling through the main components of a Leddar sensing module Figure 1 Signal travelling through the main components
of a Leddar sensing module Beam Pattern for Multi-Element Option The multiple-element photodetector has a rectangular sensing area.
The purpose of the emission optics of a Leddar sensor is to direct as much of the emitted light from one
or more LEDS into a pattern that best fits the photodetector geometry. The purpose of the reception optics is to collect the backscatter of light from objects in that beam onto the photodetector.
Figure 2 illustrates a simulated emission beam pattern of a Leddar sensor with an overlay of the matching segments provided by the reception optics corresponding to the photodetector elements.
Figure 2. Emission beam pattern and match to a 16-element photodetector Figure 2. Emission beam pattern and match to a 16-element photodetector How Does It Work?
The sensor signal is amplified, and the signal acquisition is synchronized to the pulses. An oversampling scheme using multiple light pulses is implemented to improve the resolution of the acquired signal.
In addition to oversampling, an accumulation process is accomplished in order to improve the signal to noise ratio. The oversampling value and number of accumulations influence the detection/measurement,
the range, accuracy and precision of the measurements. The performance of the sensor can thus be optimized with these parameters to meet the requirements of the application.
Detection and Distance Measurement The detection and distance measurement is performed by the sensor's processor,
using the acquired signals (one per photodetector element). The signals consist of a series of values representing light amplitude at incremental distances from the sensor.
The number of samples in the signal is chosen according to maximum range required. The amplitude of each sample is an indicator of the quantity of light reflected back from a given object at that specific distance.
The amplitude depends on distance, size, reflectivity and angle of the object with respect to the sensor. An object will be detected by the sensor
if a light pulse above a predetermined threshold is found. The threshold at which a peak in the trace is interpreted as the presence of an object depends on the signal-to-noise ratio.
Leddartech determines the default threshold level for each sensor based on the signal-to-noise ratio. A threshold table is applied in the detection processing of the traces,
and a threshold offset parameter is provided on most sensors in order to adjust this threshold table. The offset can be set to increase
or decrease the sensitivity of the sensor. This can be used to ignore the presence of objects returning weak signals
or to maximize detection of such objects and filter false detections in the application software.
Another setting available on Leddar sensors IS LED the intensity. LED intensity control can be set to manual mode or automatic mode.
In manual control mode the setting is adjusted by the operator to best fit the application.
In automatic control mode, the sensor will dynamically adjust the LED intensity based on the amplitude of the signal for objects detected in the sensor beam.
With this control, a sensor model can be used for a wide range of applications with different range requirements
and also be used in applications where objects can both be very close or far from the sensor.
In this example, the sensor is collecting light reflected back by two separate objects. Full waveform analysis performed by Leddar sensors provides the capacity to detect multiple objects in the same segment.
This is possible if the closer object is smaller than the illuminated area for that segment.
the multi-element sensor software generates a combined graphical representation of all segments, as shown in Figure 4 below.
this beam contains 16 of the pulses illustrated in Figure 3 Benefits of Leddar Technology Leddar sensors provide three key benefits compared to competing products:
Leddar excels on the widest range of performance criteria, due to its ruggedness, rapid data acquisition,
As an optoelectronic technology it can easily be adapted to almost any final application. Of particular benefit to developers and integrators is the technology's unmatched cost/performance ratio,
its ability to detect multiple objects in each segment and lateral discrimination (multi-element platform), its long detection range with low-power LEDS, real-time object-tracking capabilities, detection
Integrating with Leddar Sensor Modules At the heart of all Leddar sensors lies the Leddarcore with patented Leddar Light Processing,
providing an ultra-low-power sensor core that can easily fit into a small footprint. Because of their compact size and flexible interfaces
The modules were designed to facilitate both mechanical and software integration. Namely, the included software development kit provides sample code for developers to quickly integrate sensor data into their application software.
There is also a choice of popular communication interface options (e g.,, USB, RS-485 and UART),
and additional headers are also available for custom expansion. As for the receiver, one can choose from several beam options,
ranging from 3°to 95°.°To encourage developers to see how well the technology works
and how easily it is integrated, a low-cost evaluation kit is readily available for trial purposes.
Conclusion This innovative core technology is giving rise to the creation of a completely new generation of ultra-efficient smart sensors,
Leddar is poised to become a key enabler in the smart sensor revolution. For more information on this patented*technology, visit leddartech. com. Leddar is registered a trademark of Leddartech Inc. Leddar technology is covered by one or more of the following U s. patents:
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