Naples, FL –March 28, 2017--- Roger Grace, President of Roger Grace Associates, the leading marketing consultancy specializing in Sensors and MEMS has organized and will chair a full-day technical symposium on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at the Sensors Expo & Conference. The workshop will address Printed, Flexible, Stretchable (P/F/S) and Functional Fabric (FF) Sensors from an Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable applications perspective. Mr. Grace will be joined by 13 other world recognized leaders in the P/F/S and FF sensors and electronics area representing organizations from the US and Europe who will present information on topics including currently available sensor products, current research and development activities as well as application opportunities for P/F/S and FF sensors and sensor-based systems. Mr. Grace will also make a presentation entitled, “Introduction- to and Opportunities- for Printed/Flexible/Stretchable and Functional Fabric Sensors for IoT (Internet of Things) and Wearables” which will address commercialization and monetization issues. The exhibition and technical conference will take place at the McEnery San Jose California Convention Center from June 27-29, 2017.
Mr. Grace stated, “This all-day workshop continues to be a key and integral part of my “evangelization” of Printed, Flexible and Stretchable and most recently Functional Fabric sensors. It was developed to help inform and educate the technical, technical management, and business community of the major significance of these technologies and their enabled far-reaching opportunities in IoT and wearable applications from both a current and future perspective. Attendees will be provided with presentations from representatives of leading international organizations representing the entire ecosystem of P/F/S and FF sensors, from research and development to manufacturing, who are in the forefront of bringing new and unique P/F/S and FF technologies to the market. Several speakers from leading international research and development organizations and universities will address their efforts on device development and integration issues and future application opportunities. My presentation will address the current and future opportunities for P/F/S and FF sensors and the necessary requirements for them to become commercially viable. I will address barriers to the successful commercialization and strategies resulting in monetization of P/F/S and FF sensors strategies from perspectives including integration, infrastructure and manufacturing. We expect the attendee to leave the session with a good knowledge of where we have come from, where we are, where we’re going, and what they need to do to help create a more commercially viable P/F/S and FF sensor industry as well as where they can participate in exploiting current and future major application opportunities for P/F/S and FF sensors.” He concluded, “This Sensors Expo 2017 precon workshop has, to the best of my knowledge, the most highly concentrated and expansive effort to date to exclusively address the topic of P/F/S and FF sensors.”
Mr. Cal Groton, Show Director for the Sensors Expo & Conference said, “As a result of the immense popularity of Roger’s 2016 workshop on a similar topic, we asked him to return and organize another workshop to support our 2017 precon program. We decided early on in the creation of the Sensors 2017 Pre-Conference program to address IoT and wearables because of their current and future importance and far-reaching application in the sensors space. Our decision to bring Roger Grace aboard to develop and chair this workshop was an easy one based on Roger’s well- deserved reputation in the industry as the sensors marketing consultant “guru “in addition to his long and successful track record of developing over 25 successful technical conference sessions, many here at our event, Sensors Expo. We are truly gratified that Roger’s selection of speakers demonstrates the intent of our exciting conference…that being informing and educating the engineering community as to the importance and enabling nature of sensor technology to meet application opportunities. We are looking forward to very successful technical sessions, exhibit floor participation and especially Roger’s star-studded array of speakers in our pre-conference program”.
The symposium’s morning keynote entitled, “Printing of Nano and Microscale Electronics and Sensors Using Direct Assembly of Nanomaterials on Flexible or Rigid Substrates” will be presented by Prof. Ahmed Busnaina of Northeastern University. The symposium’s afternoon keynote entitled, “Conductive Textiles for Wearable Applications”, will be presented by Prof. John Volakis of the Ohio State University. The keynotes were selected to highlight two of the more interesting and exciting topics in the P/F/S and FF space… advanced manufacturing processes and fabric electronics/sensors.
ABOUT PRINTED/FLEXIBLE/STRETCHABLE SENSORS
The availability of sensors that can take the shape and work reliably in their imposed complex and demanding working environment has existed for quite some time. Interlink Electronics and Tekscan introduced their flexible sensor product lines in the mid-80’s. With the recent popularity of IoT and wearables, create the need for low-cost single or multiple sensors per system that are small, lightweight and low- power consuming that also can conform to the shape of and survive the environment in which they must operate and are becoming essential. This is especially relevant in the creation of measurement systems which typically rely upon several sensors and their accompanying microcontroller/embedded sensor fusion algorithms that make them “smart” and enable them to address a myriad of IoT applications including environmental/pollution monitoring including air, water, soil and food; fitness; health /eHealth monitoring; agriculture and other applications supporting the “four pillars” of Abundance – the solution being printed/flexible/stretchable sensors and associated electronics and packaging. Recent estimates report the total market for printed/flexible sensors to be $8 billion of the $340 billion flexible electronics market by 2025. With expected unit average sales prices (ASPs) of approximately $0.01 by 2025, this translates into an annual 800 billion unit volume market and certainly qualifies as a significant constituent of the trillion sensors initiative.
The US DOD has recently awarded major contracts to organizations to move these two important technologies forward. Headed by MIT, the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) Program received $75 million in funding matched with $242 from many participating organizations in late April, 2016. In August 2015, the FlexTech Alliance received $75 million from DOD with matching grants of $96 million from organizations to create and manage a flexible hybrid electronics facility in San Jose California.
ABOUT ROGER GRACE ASSOCIATES
Roger Grace Associates, founded in 1982, is located in Naples, Florida and provides comprehensive strategic marketing consulting and marketing communications services to domestic and overseas high-technology-based clients, from startups to Fortune 500’s in addition to government agencies. The firm specializes in conducting market research leading to the creation, development and execution of positioning, branding and actionable market strategies for its clients in the successful commercialization of technology for the sensors, MEMS, Nano, semiconductor and semiconductor equipment markets. For more information please visit www.rgrace.com.
ABOUT SENSORS EXPO
Sensors Expo & Conference is North America’s premier event focused exclusively on sensors and sensor-integrated systems and is widely known as the world’s largest and most important gathering of engineers involved in sensor systems. The conference program is dedicated to exploring the most up-to-date innovations in sensor technology in tracks including energy harvesting and power management, emerging technologies, flexible and wearables, IoT and wireless, measurement and detection, MEMS and sensors, novel sensor applications, optical sensing and detection, sensors and embedded systems design and sensor data. Sensors Expo & Conference identifies cutting-edge trends, explores them in an information-packed conference program and reflects those trends throughout the exhibit floor with new product announcements, application presentations, technology focused tours and a showcase of hundreds of products and services.
In its 33rd. year, Sensors Expo will take place at the McEnery Convention Center in downtown San Jose from June 27-29, 2017, its expected attendance of over 6,000 will provide the opportunity for attendees to visit close to 300 exhibitors, attend five all-day precon sessions and 65 technical sessions. For more information, please visit www.sensorsexpo.com.
Editor’s Note: Editors are invited to attend Sensors Expo 2017 free of charge. Please visit www.sensorsexpo.com/press to submit your press credentials. A detailed agenda of the session is attached for your convenience. Abstracts, bios and photos of the presenters are available online at www.sensorsexpo.com/schedule.
AGENDA (in alphabetical order of last name) Rev. C… 3/24/17
SENSORS EXPO 2017 PRECON
PRINTED, FLEXIBLE, STRETCHABLE AND FUNCTIONAL FABRIC SENSORS AND SYSTEMS:
TECHNOLOGIES AND APPLICATIONS FOR WEARABLE AND IOT APPLICATI ONS
SESSION ORGANIZER AND CHAIRMAN: ROGER H. GRACE, ROGER GRACE ASSOCIATES
SAN JOSE MCENERY CONVENTION CENTER, SAN JOSE CALIFORNIA
JUNE 27, 2017
9:00 A.M. TO 5:00 P.M.
M. Atashbar et al., Western Michigan University, Development and Applications of Novel Flexible Sensors and Electronics
A. Bozkurt, North Carolina State University, Fiber-Based Multimodal Sensors Enabling the Next Generation Textile Integrated Systems
S. Brongersma, IMEC Holst (The Netherlands), Low Power Hybrid Stretchable and Textile-Based Sensors for Sports and Vitality Applications
A. Busnaina, Northeastern University, Printing of Nano and Microscale Electronics and Sensors Using Direct Assembly of Nanomaterials on Flexible or Rigid Substrates (KEYNOTE)
S. Cardoso et al., INESC Microsystems and Nanotechnologies (Portugal), Integration Challenges of Flexible Magnetoresistive Sensors
R. Grace, Roger Grace Associates, Introduction and Opportunities for Printed/Flexible/Stretchable/Function Fabrics for Wearable and IoT Applications
C. Guareschi, ISORG (France), Printed Image Sensors for the Biometrics Market: A Paradigm Shift
A. Mohammed, FLEX, Manufacturing Challenges for the Integration of Sensors into Wearable Products
J. Mantyjarvi, VTT (Finland), Printed and Hybrid Electronic Sensors for Healthcare and Wearable Technology
R. Podoloff, Tekscan, Design Considerations in the Development of a Sensor–Based Flexible Gait Analysis Platform
R. Potyrailo, GE Research, Gas Sensors in Wearable Formats: Synergy between Electronics, Materials Science and Data Analytics
M. Ridao, SensingTex (Spain), Fully Flexible Electronic Devices Including Textile Interactive Force Sensing and Actuator Mats
J. Son, Pressure Profile Systems, Evolution of Flexible, Stretchable and Conformable Fabric Capacitive Tactile Sensors
J. Volakis et al, Ohio State University, Conductive Textiles for Wearable Applications (KEYNOTE)