Sure, it looks like a blue marble from outer space, but this world is a living, breathing organism.
To ensure our planet maintains that healthy glow and keeps us healthy as well, we must closely watch Earth's vital signs like a nurse watches a hospitalized patient. This is increasingly important as populations grow and resources become scarce.
In more technical parlance, it's called environmental monitoring.
This technology describes the processes and activities that need to take place to characterize and monitor the quality of the environment. This, in turn, helps ensure we have better analytics regarding food supplies, human health, and environmental factors that affect our economy—even our everyday life.
Along the way, digital transformation and Industry 4.0 innovations have improved data collection. Designers are developing better and cheaper devices.
That brings us to the sensor, the most fundamental aspect of environmental monitoring.
In this week's New Tech Tuesday, we'll look at sensors from Sensirion, Amphenol, and TDK for environmental-monitoring design.
For air quality, the Sensirion SGP41 CMOSens®/MOXSens® sensor can be found in demand-controlled ventilation, air purifiers, air exchange units, and even kitchen hoods. The sensor, which measures 2.4mm2 x 0.85mm, is on a single chip and can be easily integrated into limited spaces. CMOSens® technology features a digital I2C interface and temperature-controlled micro hotplates. MOXSens® technology features highly sensitive and reliable gas measures of indoor air pollutants, such as volatile and organic compounds and nitrogen oxide gasses. The Gas Index Algorithm automatically triggers the removal of indoor air gas pollutants, enabling long-term stability and low drift.
For humidity and temperature, Amphenol Advanced Sensors Thermometrics T9501 IP67 with Modbus are solutions for nearly any type of harsh-environment application such as marine environments and agriculture, and indoor growing. They're also ideal for less-than-harsh applications, such as HVAC control, air conditioning, refrigeration, indoor air quality, vent fans, home appliances, handheld devices, medical instruments, and food processing. The T9801 is based on a capacitive polymer sensor chip and ASIC integrated into an easy-mount package. Each sensor is individually calibrated and tested. The waterproof sensor can be used without further calibration or temperature compensation.
TDK CHS Industrial Humidity Sensors feature humidity-sensitive characteristics that exhibit virtually no hysteresis. The sensors offer a wide relative humidity range of 5 percent to 95 percent, high accuracy of up to ±3% RH, and stable temperature characteristics over a wide range (0°C to +50°C). They're applicable in refrigerators for condensation prevention, air conditioners for indoor humidity control, and industrial electronic humidity sensors for air-conditioning systems.
Designing environmental monitoring solutions becomes increasingly important as the population grows and resources become scarce. Data is the key to having as much vital information as possible to help identify environmental stress, understand environmental patterns, and evaluate the effectiveness of strategies and programs.
Tommy Cummings is a freelance writer/editor based in Texas. He's had a journalism career that has spanned more than 40 years. He contributes to Texas Monthly and Oklahoma Today magazines. He's also worked at The Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, San Francisco Chronicle, and others. Tommy covered the dot-com boom in Silicon Valley and has been a digital content and audience engagement editor at news outlets. Tommy worked at Mouser Electronics from 2018 to 2021 as a technical content and product content specialist.