Sensors Converge 2022 wrapped up after three days in San Jose, marking a joyous return to in-person expos for thousands of visitors and 220 vendors, many relieved to ditch online Zoom and Teams meetings after two-plus years of Covid.
The June 27-29 event roughly doubled the number who turned out nine months earlier at Sensors Converge September 2021 at the same venue, the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose. That one was a hybrid affair of both streaming and in-person conference sessions and expo.
The latest turnout left some vendors and visitors exhilarated, including developers from Canada, Germany, France, Netherlands and other European countries. Some were exasperated by long distance travel delays reaching San Jose but relieved to actually chat with experts in person or even to simply hold tiny microchips, sensors and other components in-hand.
Others were glad to show up to escape momentarily from worries over a controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, raging inflation and spikes in oil prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “With all the things going on in the world, it’s great to come here and talk tech,” one woman exclaimed on the show floor.
Indeed, there was plenty of tech. A big theme emerged at the event around sensor fusion, where vendors such as Renesas showed off the ability to incorporate multiple gas sensors on a single piece of firmware. Variations of the company’s firmware will be used to detect indoor or outdoor air quality, essential in a post-Covid world.
In one demonstration, Uwe Guenther, senior director of sensor solutions for Renesas, demonstrated how the small indoor sensor firmware could almost instantly detect his hand hovering over it after he had applied hand sanitizer. An app on a Bluetooth connected smartphone quickly turned from green to red, showing the presence of alcohol on his hand, a kind of volatile organic compound.
For that type of sensor, Renesas competes with Bosch and Sensirion, among others, analysts said.
In one of the more dramatic tech demonstrations in a booth on the showfloor, Synaptics showed how a tiny camera sensor can be used to detect a person falling. One of the booth’s staffers joyously walked under the camera and crumpled to the carpeted floor, a re-creation of what might happen in the home of an elderly person. Using AI, the system is designed to be able to differentiate an actual fall from when someone drops to the floor for exercise.
While larger, more expensive and energy consuming cameras are already in wide use to detect movements and gestures and even facial features, some vendors are promoting radar and lidar alongside cameras for use in vehicles for assisted driving and self-driving functions. One vendor, Blickfeld, showed off a lidar sensor smaller than tennis ball that could be incorporated in future vehicles once the price drops down as expected from about $1,200 down to a sweet spot of $100 to $200.
In conjunction with the event, Analog Devices launched a module for 3D sensing for machine vision for use with industrial automation or healthcare or augmented reality.
RELATED: Analog Devices launches module for 3D sensing for machine vision
In other highlights, a panel of experts discussed an emerging Ripple standard for radar interoperability, which is designed to drastically shorten development time for engineers building radar-based applications that will be used to help in many applicaitons from self-driving vehicles to medical devices.
RELATED: Ripple spec to boost radar sensing for years to come, proponents say
Sensors Converge also included keynote speakers promoting sustainability and ethics around robotics. Actor and environmentalist Adrian Grenier challenged engineers to collaborate to protect the Earth, including his efforts to capture plastic before it enters the oceans with an eye to recycling it for important purposes.
RELATED: Robot ethics and sustainable tech discussed at Sensors Converge
Robot ethicist Kate Darling took the stage to promote engagement by inventors and engineers in the political realm to help create frameworks and policies to protect public safety, even from subtle annoyances such as delivery robots that can interfere with wheelchairs on sidewalks. The more dire concerns revolve around automated weapons systems where the United Nations is urging countries to vow not to design autonomous weapon systems that can kill without a human’s command.
Sensors Converge 2022 represented the 37th year the event has been held. It will return June 20-23 to the nearby Santa Clara Convention Center in the heart of Silicon Valley.