Instrumems won the Best of Sensors 2022 Award at this year's Sensors Converge conference in a special award ceremony held in June in San Jose. The company's Multi-Sense Platform won the award in the MEMS (Micro Electro-Mechanical System) category, one of 14 award categories. These awards were created to honor the best new products in the sensor ecosystem and the people and companies that design them.
"We're thrilled and honored to win this prestigious Best of Sensors Award," said Dr. Gilad Arwatz, founder and CEO of Instrumems. "As the sensor market continues to evolve, Instrumems will continue advancing the flow sensing capabilities of our multi-sensing platform to support our customers' product manufacturing requirements."
The Instrumems Multi-Sense Platform is the first MEMS nanosensor that can measure temperature and flow in a single sensor and they plan on introducing new versions soon that support additional sensing parameters, like bubble detection and gas detection in the same sensor. It was designed to be used in low-power applications that need real-time sensing in respiratory devices, including CPAP machines, smart inhalers, and ventilators, where precise flow measurement is a necessity.
Many of the products requiring flow sensors face several limitations, including sensor accuracy, battery life, speed, and cost. Conversely, most of today's flow sensors are large and expensive, making them unfeasible for use in consumer products or high-volume applications.
The Instrumems Multi-Sense Platform enables many industries to use state-of-the-art temperature and flow sensors in their devices and products where they never could before due to price, size, or accuracy considerations. With Instrumems's multi-sense platform innovation, customers can make their products more competitive and appealing by modernizing, miniaturizing, or reinventing them.
The Multi-Sense Platform uses Instrumems novel “nanowire” sensing platform, which consists of a platinum nano sensing wire filament suspended between electrodes. This technology is based on hot wire anemometry, which has very high spatial resolution and excellent frequency response characteristics. It also allows instantaneous flow velocity to be calculated from electric voltage measurements. The result is accurate, real-time flow measurement at an economical price. The new nano-sensor has a frequency response of up to 100 kilohertz.
It is also small, as you can see in the picture above. The “nanowire” filament technology allowed Instrumems to manufacture a much smaller sensor. The platinum wire filament also withstands shock and vibration well for more durability.
Based in Silicon Valley, Instrumems is a spinoff of Princeton University research conducted by Professor Marcus Hultmark and Dr. Gilad Arwatz. It was founded to advance flow sensing technology and spread its adoption into more markets, such as medical, IoT, and industrial applications. The company has developed innovative nanosensors that measure humidity, velocity, temperature, and more. By utilizing Instrumems's breakthrough sensing technology, industrial and consumer product manufacturers will be able to implement a smart sensing solution in any device.
To find out more about the 2022 Best of Sensors award and see a full list of all the winners, read this article.