Microsensors and actuators

 

At KEmikro several micro sensors and actuators have been developed. An example are micro whistles emitting signals in the ultrasonic range when a small bellow is pressed. The tones of these micro whistles can not be heard by humans but can be employed for wireless remote controls or switches without batteries. Besides this, it is possible detecting the position of micro whistles when the times of arrival of their tones at different microphones are recorded. This way, for example, the movent of persons or vehicles can be followed.

There is a variety of methods suitable for flow measurement in micro channels. An especially low-cost aproach is measuring the heat transported away from a wire heated up by an electrical current trough it. The wire can be welded in when the lid is welded onto the micro channel. A flow measurement nearly independent on the properties of the fluid is the Flow Parallel Wire (FPW) which was developed at KEmikro. Read more about flow measurement in micro channels...

Micropatterned overload sensors are developed to detect the overload of fiber-reinforced polymer parts. They allow detecting an overload which occured at any time in the past.

PVDF is a piezoelectric and pyroelectric polymer. It can be employed constructing very sensitive and low-cost piezoelectric sensors measuring the change of strain, presssure difference, force, and temperature.