The Checkpack project showes great achievements in sensing packaged food. Ghent University’s Frank Devlieghere leads the development of the optical sensor solution, in a collaborative EU R&D scheme.
At the Sensor Conference ‘The Sense of Contact’ on December 13th, adjacent to the iMNC, Professor Devlieghere will give a lecture explaining the results of the Checkpack project and the road towards them.
In the same domain, Wageningen University & TNO are working on packaged fresh cut vegetables. Reading from your smartphone what the real quality is, makes you independent from biased ‘fresh until’ signs. That is where the project is aiming at.
Wageningen’s professor Ernst Woltering and Jos van der Vossen of TNO Quality of Life will clarify what they are researching and developing. Woltering will challenge sensor developers to come forward with proposals for sensors that can help to closing the last gap towards reliable, working applications.

New and innovative technology that revolutionises the way in which engineers use and interface with bearings. This is what the SKF Insight sensor technology is about, integration of a miniature, self-powered and intelligent wireless sensor at the heart of the bearing. It allowes engineers to monitor the operating conditions of a bearing from within a machine, in real time. As a result, bearing wear and potential failure can be planned and prevented, rather than simply being predicted, as was previously the case.

The solution that has been developed uses miniature sensors and intelligent wireless components that are embedded in the bearing and draw their power from the application.
Traditionally, condition monitoring looks for early signs of failure by measuring levels of vibration. Vibration signals are normally produced when the first small fragments of steel begin to spall from the raceway surface of the rings or the rolling elements. By the time this damage reaches the stage where it can be detected using conventional sensors it is already too late, as the bearing has already suffered damage that affects its operating performance and life.
One of the purposes of SKF Insight technology is to make condition monitoring more widely applicable and accessible, particularly in applications where it has been previously been considered impossible or impractical. This is one reason why the technology is in testing in challenging industries such as wind power, rail and steel manufacturing.

A fine example of what State of the Art sensor technology is enabling to fulfill for industrial applications in the domain of complex machinery.

December 13th 14.00 – 14.20 hrs. Lecture A-2.2Insight Technology, Wireless Sensor Technology in Bearing Georgo Angelis, SKF

Everyone is talking about IOT, Digitalization or Industry 4.0. Where are we going to start?
Prompting a thorough integration of information processing into everyday objects and activities of human beings, that’s what pervasive computing is about.

With recent advances and mature techniques in both software and hardware of sensor development, making a plethora of embedded platforms that equip well computation, communication, and sensing capabilities available has brought rich experiences to end users. The phenomenon indeed reveals dramatic changes on the way we live, we act, we think, and so forth which all directly are linked to both our daily lives and industry.

At the sensor conference Emerson’s Jan Willem Dijkshoorn will introduce pervasive sensing in its’ application in process industry.

Furthermore, in Egbert van der Woude’s talk on ‘Multiparameter Sensing for Neopnatology’ turns out to be pervasive oriented too, in a completely different application area. Bronkhorst, Van der Woude’s background, comes from the microfluidic specialism. Look at the subtitle of the duo presentation together with Aleksandar Andreski, Saxion University Applied Sciences: ‘Microfluidic Monitoring of  Intravenous Drug Delivery’

Jan Willem Dijkshoorn Emerson	Dec. 13th 14.40 – 15.00 hrs. A-2.4 Pervasive Sensing Technologies
Egbert van der Wouden Bronkhorst    Aleksandar Andreski Saxion University of Applied Sciences	December 13th 13.30 – 14.00 hrs. Lecture B-2.1 Multiparameter Sensing for Neonatology Microfluidic Monitoring of Intravenous Drug Delivery

Two research and development oriented companies in micro nano technology, Micronit and Surfix, have joined forces to bring the technology for fabricating advanced point-of-care diagnostic tests to the next level. In the Coat PoCKET R&D project, a capillary flow driven, polymer-based microfluidic chip with electrostatically triggered valves is combined with locally applied nanocoatings. This enables complex fluid control and allows assays requiring sequential flow of reagents to be carried out on-chip without the need for external pumps.
Bringing the technology to a scalable production process for PoC devices is what the project is aiming at.
The Coat PoCKET project is supported by EFRO/OP Oost.

The development of electrostatically triggered capillary valves and local surface modification as key enabling technologies for point-of-care diagnostics will be presented and explained in this lecture at the Sense of Contact 19 sensor conference.

12.00-12.15 hrs. Lecture B-1.5
Complex Sensor Technology for Point-of-Care Devices Being Brought to Production, CoatPoCKET

Aliki Tsopela Micronit Microtechnologies

Wout Knoben Surfix

In his presentation at the sensor conference ‘Sense of Contact 19’, Stijn Goossens of the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, will explain the concept for a broadband image sensor based on the monolithic integration of a CMOS integrated circuit with graphene.

Integrated circuits based on CMOS -complementary metal-oxide semiconductors- are at the heart of the technological revolution of the past 40 years, as these have enabled compact and low cost micro-electronic circuits and imaging systems. However, the diversification of this platform into applications other than microcircuits and visible light cameras has been impeded by the difficulty to combine other semiconductors than silicon with CMOS.

In this concept for a broadband image sensor the graphene is covered with colloidal quantum dots to sensitize it to UV, visible and infrared light (300 – 2000 nm). This demonstration of a broadband graphene-CMOS image sensor is a major leap towards 3d integrated circuits based on 2d materials and Si-CMOS that can perform even more complex tasks than Si-CMOS alone.

Furthermore, Stijn Goossens will show a prototypewellness monitor based on graphene colloidal quantum dot hybrid detectors. They leveraged graphene’s flexible and transparent properties to create a wearable device that is conformal to the human body so that it can extract vital signs such as heart rate, breathing rate and oxygen saturation more reliably than conventional devices.

December 13th
10.45-11.15 hrs. Lecture C-1.1
Graphene as Enabler for Broadband Image Sensors Integrated with CMOS and Flexible Platforms

Stijn Goossens, ICFO, The Institute of Photonic Devices, Barcelona

‘Sensing for Neonatology’ is the more professionally defined title of the lecture at The Sense of Contact conference. In a joint presentation dr.Aleksandar Andreski of  Saxion University Applied Sciences and Egbert van der Wouden, Bronkhorst High Tech will point out how they designed and built a microfluidic sensor system to monitor intravenous drug delivery, specifically applied for early born babies in incubators. Based on microflow sensors, designed and developed for industrial applications, they succeeded in at least a proof of principle set up. The system was built with a fluidic resistance & Delta P sensor, a Coriolis Mass Flow Meter, an Calorimetric Mass Flow Meter, a Anemometric Mass Flow Meter, a density meter and a syringe pump.

It is a great example how industrial/academic collaboration may lead to life saving and caring solutions.

B-2 Sensors for Life Science & Health
13.30-14.00  Sensing for Neonatology, Microfluidic Monitoring of  Intravenous Drug Delivery

Egbert van der Wouden       
Bronkhorst

Aleksander Andreski
Saxion University of Applied Sciences

Is it possible to measure how fresh food is, even if it’s still packed? With the research consortium CheckPack prof. Frank Devlieghere developed an optical sensor which can be used in food packages that can tell whether a product is still consumable, without needing to open the package. By using this sensor, food waste can be prevented.
“Our main focus lies on meat and fish packings, because these are two important food industries in Flanders”, Prof. Frank Devlieghere (Ghent University, faculty of Bioscience Engineering) explains.
“Fish and meat don’t keep well, so a packing sensor comes in handy for these products. Later, we’ve also incorporated the sensor in fruit, vegetable and biscuit packings.”

Frank Devlieghere will tell more about the results of the CheckPack project in the Sensors for Agro & Food track during The Sense of Contact 19.

A. Sensors for Agro & Food

10.45-11.15  Sensors for Decay Detection in the Agro-Food Chain

Professor Frank Devlieghere, Ghent University

DIFFMAG sensor is the unexpected breakthrough in magnetic detection of the sentinel node in the case of head/neck cancer. Bennie ten Haken will give a keynote lecture about the IronNanoLoc Project at Sense of Contact 18.

“It almost sound arrogant to say you have discovered something new regarding magnetic detection”  Bennie ten Haken, groupleader magenetic detection of the MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medice, is full of enthusiasm. His group has patented a technology which makes it possible to “use nano particles the size of one small ferromagnetic Weiss area with iron oxide – rust – to build a biomarker which is used to find a lump and to perform detection while ignoring all other particles in the body. We’re basically getting rid of the patient and are able to find that one specific particle in living body in a very friendly way.”

Unfortunately the technology can’t be used yet in all medical disciplines, because it requires large *** spoelen ***. “ When we met Remco de Bree, head-neck surgeon at the UMC Utrecht Cancer Research Centre, this disadvantage didn’t appear be a restriction. In the head-neck area – where there’s a huge medical urgency – the detection is relatively superficial so you don’t need the large ****. 

For this purpose the DIFMAG sensor is in development; Differential Magnetometer. The enthusiasm of Ten Haken is partly caused by acquiring a STW grant for further development and demonstration of the technology and for improving local treatments. Besides the University of Twente, UMC Utrecht and the Radbout University Nijmegen, also industrial partners participate in the IronNanoLoc project. The names of these industrial partners aren’t published yet, but every company that could contribute to this research project can apply for a seat in the ‘user-committee’. Partners that are already financially involved have the right to decide if a company is admitted to this committee.

Keynote lecture Bennie ten Haken: 14 dec. 16.00 – 16.30 hrs, Sense of Contact 18