To find food, homes, and mates, some animals have adapted special sensing capabilities. Rather than using a passive method, they discharge a signal and then extract the necessary information from the response. More importantly, they use the slope of the detected signal to find the destination of an object. In this paper, similar strategy is mathematically formulated. A perturbation and correlationbased gradient estimation method is developed and used as a sensing strategy. This method allows us to adaptively sense an object in a given environment effectively. The proposed strategy is based on the use of gradient values; rather than instantaneous measurements. Considering the gradient value, the sampling frequency is planned adaptively, i.e., sparse sampling is performed in slowly varying regions, while dense sampling is conducted in rapidly changing regions. Using a temperature sensor, the proposed strategy is verified and its effectiveness is demonstrated.

In this study, we employed Manchester code for illumination control and flicker prevention of the light-emitting diode (LED) used in a visible light communication (VLC) system. In the VLC transmitter, the duty factor of the Manchester code was utilized for illumination control; in the VLC receiver, the spike signal from an RC-high pass filter was utilized to recover the transmitted signal whilst suppressing the 120-Hz noise arising from adjacent lighting lamps. Instead of the clock being transmitted in a separate channel, a syncmark signal was transmitted in front of each data byte and used as the reference time for transforming the Manchester code to nonreturn- to-zero (NRZ) data in the receiver. In experiments, the LED illumination was controlled in the range of approximately 12-84% of the constant wave (CW) light via changing of the duty factor from 10% to 90%. This scheme is useful for constructing indoor wireless sensor networks using LED light that is flicker-free and presents capability for illumination control.

In this study, hierarchical mesoporous CuO spheres, ZnO flowers, and heterojunction CuO/ZnO nanostructures were fabricated via a facile hydrothermal method. The as-prepared materials were characterized in detail using various analytical methods such as powder X-ray diffraction, micro Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The obtained results are consistent with each other. The H2S-sensing characteristics of the sensors fabricated based on the CuO spheres, ZnO flowers, and CuO/ZnO heterojunction were investigated at different temperatures and gas concentrations. The sensor based on ZnO flowers showed a maximum response of ~141 at 225 ℃. The sensor based on CuO spheres exhibited a maximum response of 218 at 175 ℃, whereas the sensor based on the CuO/ZnO nano-heterostructure composite showed a maximum response of 344 at 150 ℃. The detection limit (DL) of the sensor based on the CuO/ZnO heterojunction was ~120 ppb at 150 ℃. The CuO/ZnO sensor showed the maximum response to H2S compared with other interfering gases such as ethanol, methanol, and CO, indicating its high selectivity.

The incidences of cardiovascular diseases are rapidly increasing worldwide. The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a test to detect and monitor heart issues via electric signals in the heart. Presently, detecting heart disease in real time is not only possible but also easy using the myDAQ data acquisition device and LabVIEW. Hence, this paper proposes a system that can acquire ECG signals in real time, as well as detect heart abnormalities, and through light-emitting diodes (LEDs) it can simultaneously reveal whether a particular waveform is in range or otherwise. The main hardware components used in the system are the myDAQ device, Vernier adapter, and ECG sensor, which are connected to ECG monitoring electrodes for data acquisition from the human body, while further processing is accomplished using the LabVIEW software. In the Results section, the proposed system is compared with some other studies based on the features detected. This system is tested on 10 randomly selected people, and the results are presented in the Simulation Results section.

We studied an integrated-optic biosensor configuration that operates at a wavelength of 0.63 μm based on the evanescent-wave and two horizontal mode power coupling of Si3N4 rib-optical waveguides formed on a Si/SiO2/Si3N4/SiO2 multilayer thin films. The sensor consists of a single-mode input waveguide, followed by a two-mode section which acts as the sensing region, and a Y-branch output for separating the two output waveguides. The coupling between the two propagating modes in the sensing region produces a periodically repeated optical power exchanges along the propagation. A light power was steered from one output channel to the other due to the change in the cladding layer (bio-material) refractive index, which affected the effective refractive index (phase-shift) of two modes through evanescent-wave. Waveguide analyses based on the rib optical waveguide dimensions were performed using various numerical computational software. Sensitivity values of 12~23 and 65~165 au/RIU, respectively for the width and length of 4 μm, and 3841.46 and 26250 μm of the two-mode region corresponding to the refractive index range 1.36~1.43 and 1.398~1.41, respectively, were obtained.

In this study, we applied edge-pulse modulation to prevent the flicker of light-emitting diode (LED) light in a visible light identification system. In the visible light transmitter, positive pulses were transmitted at the edges of the low-to-high transition points, and negative pulses were transmitted at the edges of the high-to-low transition points of the non-return-to-zero (NRZ) data waveforms. In the visible light receiver, the NRZ waveforms were regenerated by making low-to-high and high-to-low transitions at the point of the positive and negative pulses, respectively. This method has two advantages. First, it ensures that the LED light is flicker-free because the average optical power of the LED was kept constant during data transmission in the transmitter. Second, the 120 Hz optical noise from the adjacent lighting lamps was easily cut off using a simple RC-high pass filter in the receiver.

Ultraviolet (UV) sensors are widely applied in industrial and military fields such as environmental monitoring, medicine and astronomy. Zinc oxide (ZnO) is considered as one of the promising materials for UV sensors because of its ease of fabrication, wide bandgap (3.37 eV) and high chemical stability. In this study, we used the hydrothermal growth of ZnO to form two types of ZnO nanostructures (Nanoflower and nanorod) and applied them to a UV sensor. To improve the performance of the UV sensor, the hydrothermal growth was used in a two-step process for fabricating ZnO hierarchical nanostructures. The fabricated ZnO hierarchical nanostructure improved the performance of the UV sensor by increasing the ratio of volume to surface area and the number of nanojunctions compared to onestep hydrothermal grown ZnO nanostructure. The UV sensor based on the ZnO hierarchical nanostructure had a maximum photocurrent of 44 μA, which is approximately 3 times higher than that of a single nanostructure. The UV sensor fabrication method presented in this study is simple and based on the hydrothermal solution process, which is advantageous for large-area production and mass production; this provides scope for extensive research in the field of UV sensors.

Human detection is an important aspect in many video-based sensing and monitoring systems. Studies have been actively conducted for the automatic detection of humans in camera images, and various methods have been proposed. However, there are still problems in terms of performance and computational cost. In this paper, we describe a method for efficient human detection in the field of view of a camera, which may be static or moving, through multiple processing steps. A detection line is designated at the position where a human appears first in a sensing area, and only the one-dimensional gray pixel values of the line are monitored. If any noticeable change occurs in the detection line, corner detection and optical flow computation are performed in the vicinity of the detection line to confirm the change. When significant changes are observed in the corner numbers and optical flow vectors, the final determination of human presence in the monitoring area is performed using the Histograms of Oriented Gradients method and a Support Vector Machine. The proposed method requires processing only specific small areas of two consecutive gray images. Furthermore, this method enables operation not only in a static condition with a fixed camera, but also in a dynamic condition such as an operation using a camera attached to a moving vehicle.

In this study, we fabricated and evaluated graphene composite based 3D scaffolds and planar films. The hybrid composite was prepared by mixing a calculated amount of graphene nanopowder and polydimethylsiloxane in tetrahydrofuran solution. The hybrid composite is easy to manufacture into various forms using direct printing technology or a pressing method. A 3D scaffold structure was prepared at ambient temperature with a flow rate of 240 mm/min. The nozzle pressure was maintained at 350 kPa by adjusting the viscosity of the composite material. The planar film was prepared at different thicknesses using a roll-to-roll equipment. The prepared hybrid nanocomposites were evaluated to investigate their electrical properties according to temperature and mechanical deformation. The obtained results were consistent with each other. Therefore, it can be used effectively as sensors through shape definition.

The aim of this study is to develop a vertical vibration compensator that attenuates the vertical vibration of ships. The vibration compensator was designed according to the principle of generating vertical excitation forces by rotating two eccentric bodies of the same mass in opposite directions at the same rotational speed. In addition, the structural stability was analyzed using the finite element method. The maximum stress in the drive shaft was 95.6 MPa, which was approximately 35% of the allowable stress of the shaft material (SM45C, 270 MPa). The acceleration signals of the vibrator compensator body and the testbed were determined to evaluate the efficiency of the vibration compensator and the designed excitation forces. Subsequently, the excitation forces were estimated based on the relationship between force and acceleration. The estimated results were very close to the theoretical values with an error of less than 3%.