Having honored sensor innovations a mere three and a half months earlier at Sensors West in San Jose, one would think the industry would be taking a breather heading into the tail of the year. Don’t even think about it, the sensor and sensor-related product makers are never sitting still. Technology moves swiftly, and no one has been letting grass grow under their boots.
The method of deciding on the winners of the Best of Sensors Midwest awards was quite different than those given at Sensors West. In San Jose, the finalists were nominated by you the readers and the winners were selected from that pool of nominations based on outstanding characteristics, i.e., performance, one-of-a or first-of-a kind, innovation, price breakthrough, etc.
For Sensors Midwest, these criteria remained in place, but nominations were not solicited or accepted. These were Editor’s Choice awards. That’s right, you guessed right, I picked the winners, and this was no easy task.
Here’s the deal. Companies in the tech-for-engineers market, be they large, medium, or small, do not create products that have little purpose. Their creations target certain design issues, cost requirements, performance parameters, harsh environments, and a plethora of other concerns. There are major investments on their part to bring these products to market. These include R&D, prototyping, testing, retesting, legal requirements, and more. In brief, it ain’t cheap to develop a new product. Therefore, every product that enters our domain has intrinsic value and is notable. Yes, there are some that standout above the rest. But be aware, we are not comparing sensors that can withstand temperatures from -90°F to +2,500°F to audio sensors that can detect samba rhythms at 100 paces.
Be that as it may, here are the finalists selected for the Best of Sensors Midwest 2018 awards. They appear in alphabetic order.
- Endress+Hauser’s Memosens COS81D hygienic optical sensor. Read the article titled, “Dissolved Oxygen Sensor Scores Accuracy Benchmark”
- Kaman Precision Products’ OEM-2306 non-contact linear displacement measuring instrument using eddy current technology. For details, read “Position Sensing System Provides Machine Control”
- Silicon Designs compact, low-mass single axis Model 2220 series MEMS VC accelerometers. Learn more about it, “Accelerometers Enhanced For Higher Temps”
- Technologic Systems’ TS-MINI-ADC, a mini-PCIe data acquisition peripheral capable of sampling four different analog inputs at 5 Msamples/s. With the flexibility to run with either ARM or x86 processors, this analog power house can convert any system with PCIe into a signal analysis platform. Read more.
- Thales’ NavChip2, the latest in a family of high precision Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs). The NavChip2 provides the highest performance to price ratio in the market of six-axis IMU’s and is fully factory calibrated. Checkout NavChip2.
- TT Electronics’ PHS family of highly accurate and long-life rotary position sensors. Read the story titled, “Position Sensors Live Long & Accurately”
And the winners are:
- Taking the bronze award: Thales’ NavChip2, a 6-Axis Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU)
- Snagging the silver award: Kaman Precision Products’ OEM-2306 non-contact linear displacement measuring instrument
- An honorable mention goes to: Silicon Designs low-mass single axis Model 2220 series MEMS VC accelerometers
- And the winner of the gold award is: The Memosens COS81D hygienic optical sensor from Endress+Hauser
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all the companies, engineers, and designers that that make the tech world go ‘round. That’s it, until next year of course. ~MD