According to Memes Consulting, in the past decade, intelligent technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) have undergone remarkable progress and have had a huge impact on industry and people's daily lives, thanks in large part to More and more sophisticated sensors are constantly evolving. Today, electronic sensors and detectors deliver unprecedented automation in the automotive, manufacturing, consumer, and home industries. The popularity of mobile devices and their associated computing power, dedicated applications, and intangible interconnects are driving consumer demand for more integrated, smarter electronic products that automate all aspects of their daily lives.
IoT is driving rapid growth in smart home technology and demanding smarter infrared sensor technology to support the growing smart home connectivity innovation (Source: Excelitas Technologies)
In order to stimulate consumer demand, rapid innovation brings a new generation of smart devices that can handle daily operations quickly and automatically. At the same time, with the help of progressive interface technology, these devices can enable, disable and pre-program functions. The more complex and automated the function, the more the electronic device is required to obtain more perceptual data from its operating environment, such as temperature, motion and personnel presence, and to run and interact with it based on this data.
Infrared detection
For example, air conditioning and heating systems are the most power-hungry parts of household electricity. Intelligent thermostats with infrared sensors control the movement and presence of the person to save energy and keep the temperature comfortable. Advanced HVAC systems can use infrared sensors to scan rooms, generate heat maps and control air temperature. Infrared sensors automatically activate and control the thermostat by providing real-time environmentally necessary information. By providing detailed thermal information about the room, even the heat of the sun that penetrates the window can be counted to accurately calculate the room's hot and cold demand.
Motion detection is a key component of smart home products and systems (Source: Excelitas Technologies)
Infrared thermal sensors are particularly well-suited for human-machine interface applications due to their versatility, ease of integration, relatively low cost and sensitivity to human heat. Significant advances in infrared sensing technology have helped simplify system integration to meet the high competitiveness and rapid time-to-market required for consumer products.
Infrared motion thermal detection is an important part of sensor technology in intrusion alarms and home security systems (Source: Excelitas Technologies)
As product applications expand, there are many pressing needs to address the growing awareness needs of smart devices, including miniaturization, software control flexibility, energy efficiency, enhanced sensitivity, and easy-to-integrate product design. In many cases, these improvements can interact and promote each other.
miniaturization
Consumer demand tends to continue iterating on more compact and convenient smart devices, ie smaller sizes and lower presence. As a result, as smart technology becomes more practical in homes and personal devices, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are looking for ways to package more technologies and functions in smaller devices. This means that smaller sensor components and designs that are both compact and practical are needed so that the smart system itself is almost invisible to us. The goal is to save as much space as possible and integrate as many devices as possible into its application environment. Compared to traditional integrated lens transistor package (TO package) designs, new packages such as Excelitas' SMD (Surface Mount Device) infrared heat detectors can significantly reduce size and increase space efficiency.
SMD packages support machine-assembled production and are therefore better suited to meet the high-efficiency production lines required by the fast-growing consumer segment.
SMD packaged sensors are smaller in size, so they can accommodate more miniature sensors per square millimeter to support an increasingly compact electronic host device design. Consistent with smaller sizes, the optical system needs to be reduced to be as small as possible. Fresnel plastic lenses, traditionally used to provide the performance required for remote probing applications, are quite large. In order to reduce these lenses in order to implement micro-sized devices, the infrared sensor must be compensated by higher sensitivity.
Advances and advances in proprietary sensor substrate design are dramatically increasing sensor area, which means increased sensitivity (such as triggering weaker event signals faster) and an extension of effective sensing range. Nowadays, the latest SMD sensor design can effectively detect events in a range of three meters without the need for a cumbersome magnifying glass or window, thereby further improving space efficiency in the design of the host system.
Improved signal processing
Miniaturization, enhanced sensor flexibility and software control capabilities promote space utilization and versatility in smart product design. Advanced Expert Integrated Circuit (ASIC) and improved digital infrared sensor technology for signal processing now enable infrared sensors to monitor and detect multiple factors and distinguish between motion detection events and presence monitoring. This simplifies the ability to use various sensor points in a host system mesh network and delivers private data from different locations to the central control area of ​​the host system.
For example, in a smart home HVAC control system, the sensor network can activate the system from "standby" mode by detecting human access, monitoring the presence of humans in specific activation areas, when people enter Other areas of the smart home detect motion and ultimately monitor/report the ambient temperature of the entire home, taking into account the effects of variables such as sun moving, nightfall, or weather fluctuations. It is the integration of such networks that will continue to drive the development of digital sensors and expand the use of infrared sensing technology in the consumer sector.
Extended power efficiency
Optimizing the energy requirements of sensors not only extends the life of remote and mobile smart devices, but it also reduces the size of the device by significantly reducing power requirements. Lithium batteries have greatly improved the mobility of the equipment. At first, smart phones use small and efficient rechargeable batteries. Currently, other products such as electric cars and electric bicycles are used in the market. In home appliances, lithium-ion-powered smart products and systems are reducing the need for hardwired facilities. Light switches, telephones, doorbells and Internet Protocol (IP) cameras are just a few examples.
Excelitas' low-power DigiPyro 1500 Series sensor has been modified to operate with a 1.8 volt power supply to extend its field life and reduce power requirements for smart homes and portable electronics, increasing space economy (Source: Excelitas Technologies)
For these devices, run-time before charging becomes an important indicator. For example, an IP camera can be installed to charge at a location that does not affect the user's daily charging. This allows lithium batteries to provide battery runtimes for months or years. Many microprocessors now support 1.8 volt operation in order to make battery-powered devices take advantage of low voltages. Low current consumption allows the overall power budget to be reduced, thus enabling long-term operation. This requires the development of a new type of sensor that supports "1.8 volt operation and requires less current" and has recently made breakthroughs in this technology.
Higher sensitivity
An important aspect of power efficiency and performance is the ability of passive sensors to operate in "sleep" mode, requiring not only low energy consumption in standby mode, but also a lightning-fast wake-up feature to activate the host smart device.
For example, for a security or home surveillance camera, this can make a big difference in application performance - such as the camera can be set to "wake up" from standby mode and quickly autofocus to capture meaningful motion images in the field of view . Since the device uses full power only when it detects the presence of a person, it extends the life of the device and reduces the energy required by the device.
Even when the device is in sleep mode, precise sensitivity is required to achieve the necessary wake-up and fast activation. Typically, these applications use pyroelectric detectors and sensors. They provide high sensitivity and high frequency response for remote motion detection. The motion signal is transmitted directly to the microprocessor for best response and sensitivity, which can then be processed with a software program based on environmental conditions and settings.
The smart product sector is fast and changeable. The ability of OEMs to develop and launch products in a short period of time has a great impact on the success or failure of the product.
OEM design engineers need easy-to-integrate sensors for shorter product design cycles. Development time can be integrated by using electronic devices with off-the-shelf design modules. Since most of today's electronic devices are focused on digital technology, it is best to use digital technology. This means that a wide variety of sensors need to be digitized and able to communicate with surrounding electronics.
In everyday life, smart devices will continue to grow and gain more and more roles. Battery-powered switches, IP cameras and safety lights enhance the overall safety and convenience of your living and working environment while increasing energy efficiency. When connected via IoT, the overall performance will become more intelligent and convenient.
More importantly, adaptation based on presence and movement will become a commodity. More complex interactive requirements in new applications will drive the continued growth of various technologies, including the aforementioned sensor technology innovations. Sensors, especially infrared sensors, will undoubtedly continue to play a key role in technical support in the field of IoT and smart products.
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