Proceedings, Volume 1, 2017

This issue of Proceedings gathers the papers presented at the 3rd International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications (ECSA-3), held online on 15–30 November 2016 through the sciforum.net platform developed by MDPI. The annual ECSA confer...

Poly-hydroxy-alcanoates (PHAs) are biodegradable and biocompatible polymers synthesized and accumulated in intracellular compartments in several bacterial species. Polyhydroxyalcanoates (PHAs) are synthesized by numerous prokaryotes, such as Cupriavi...

We propose the design of an environment-responsive, deployable origami-inspired structure to be used as a smart building skin. The folding structure is composed by rigid panels connected to each other through hinge-like connectors. The overall degree...

The determination of the pressures affecting vertical marine structures is far from being completely understood. The prototype instrumentation and testing of large-scale channels provide information useful for defining their behaviour at probabilisti...

Breath analysis is a powerful technique for detection of respiratory diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N₂O), carbon dioxide (CO₂) and carbon monoxide (CO) present in breath...

In this talk, we demonstrate the realization of smart sensors and actuators through the exploitation of principles of nonlinear dynamics at the micro scale. Specifically, we demonstrate combining sensing and actuation into a single device through wha...

SPR technique possesses rich potential possibilities for investigation of different aspects of virus-specific agent interaction and modification of structure of viruses, induced by external factors. Аccording to World Health Organization, viruses of...

A novel and highly sensitive non-enzymatic glucose biosensor was developed by nucleating colloidal silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) on MoS₂. The facile fabrication method, high reproducibility (97.5%) and stability indicates a promising capability for l...

Today sensor data processing and information mining become more and more complex concerning the amount of sensor data to be processed, the data dimension, the data quality, and the relationship between derived information and input data. This is the...

Autonomous indoor service robots use the same passages which are used by people for navigation to specific areas. These robots are equipped with visual sensors, laser or sonar based range estimation sensors to avoid collision with obstacles, people,...

This paper deals with all required parts to set up the full variable valve train (FVVT) system to be used in intake and exhaust valves of combustion engines from the electrical/electronic point of view. This includes the displacement and pressure sen...

Load-bearing engineering structures typically have a static shape fixed during design based on expected usage and associated load cases. But neither can all possible loading situations be foreseen, nor could this large set of conditions be reflected...

In this work, a method to analyze the performance of Bluetooth-based Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) deployed within hospital environments is presented. Due to the complexity that this kind of scenarios exhibit in terms of radio propagation and coexis...

nEMoS (nano Environmental Monitoring System) is an all-in-one, low-cost, web-connected and 3D-printed device aimed at assessing the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) of buildings. It is built using some low-cost sensors connected to an Arduino micro...

This paper presents the design, manufacturing and testing of a Dual Accelerometer Vector Sensor (DAVS). The device was built within the activities of the WiMust project, a EU project, supported under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, which aims t...

The detection of structure-borne sound can be used to monitor the structural health of solid structures and machine parts. One way to achieve such an implementation is to place vibroacoustic sensors in contact with the structure. The sensors will typ...

Wearable sensor technologies are a key component in the design of applications for human activity recognition, in areas like healthcare, sports and safety. In this paper, we present an iterative learning method to classify human locomotion activities...

The titanium nitride–aluminum oxide–hafnium oxide–silicon oxide–silicon device using aluminum oxide as charge-blocking layer (hereafter TAHOS) could be a candidate for nonvolatile total ionization dose (TID) radiation sensor. In this paper, gamma rad...

The article describes the results of the project “open source Smart lamp” aimed at designing and developing a smart object able to manage and control the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) of the built environment. A first version of this smart objec...

A novel brain imager using whole brain Positron Emission is a portable unit which can be worn on a patient’s head to provide a lightweight, low cost unit which conducts AM-PET (Ambulatory Microdose Positron Emission Tomography) scans in diverse locat...

In wireless sensor networks (WSN) localization of the nodes is relevant, especially for the task of identification of events that occur in the environment being monitored. Thus, positioning of the sensors is essential to satisfy such task. In WSN, se...

Position location estimation in sensor networks is a valuable supplement since it supports the deployment of location-based services. Sensor networks have changing conditions in the environment due to propagation issues, noise and placement of sensor...

Pokhara, city of lakes, is second largest and most beautiful tourist place in Nepal. Out of seven lakes, the large three: Phewa, Begnas and Rupa are famous for tourist attraction, whereas the rest are small and less known. Lakes are not only economic...

Vehicular ad hoc Networks (VANETs) enable vehicles to communicate with each other as well as with roadside units (RSUs). Although there is a significant research effort in radio channel modelling focused in vehicle to vehicle (V2V), not much work has...

PMMA/ZnO/glass structure was investigated to enhance Love mode sensor sentivities. The phase velocities and the attenuation of the acoustic wave propagating along the PMMA/30° tilted c-axis ZnO/glass structure contacting a viscous non-conductive liqu...

The propagation of the first symmetric Lamb mode S₀ along ZnO/a-SiC thin composite plates was modeled and analysed aimed at the design of a sensor able to detect the changes of the environmental parameters, such as added mass in vacuum and the liquid...

In former studies, we proposed a topology optimization approach to maximize the sensitivity to damage of measurements collected through a network of sensors deployed over flexible, thin plates. Within such frame, damage must be intended as a change o...

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have been already successfully commercialized for around 20 years. The design of novel MEMS sensors currently targets two important features: smaller dimensions and higher reliability. As the characteristic size...

Electrical insulation can have imperfections due to manufacturing or ageing. When the insulation is electrically stressed, partial discharge (PD) pulses, with very fast rise-times and short-time durations, may occur. One of the consequences of charge...

This paper presents a system to estimate soil moisture through the reading of standard Ultra High Frequency (UHF) passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags that can be buried in the soil, allowing wireless moisture measurement without the ne...

Due to the increasingly growth in population, it is important to better use natural resources for food production and efficiency, driving the use of sensors each time more to monitor several aspects of the soil and of the crops in the field. However,...

Extracting tiny amounts of energy from non-conventional sources using Peltier cells, piezoelectrics, antennas or inductive probes has become very popular in recent years to power low-consuming sensors in IoT applications and smart grids. These energy...

Nowadays, monitoring of people and events is a common matter in the street, in the industry or at home, and acoustic event detection is commonly used. This increases the knowledge of what is happening in the soundscape, and this information encourage...

Robots are expected to perform complex dexterous operations in a variety of applications such as health and elder care, manufacturing, or high-risk environments. In this context, the most important task is to handle objects, the first step being the...

Sensors networks for the health monitoring of structural systems ought to be designed to render both accurate estimations of the relevant mechanical parameters and an affordable experimental setup. Therefore, the number, type and location of the sens...

The realistic representation of deformations is still an active area of research, especially for soft objects whose behavior cannot be simply described in terms of elasticity parameters. Most of existing techniques assume that the parameters describi...

The recent advances in sensor technology empower adaptable smart systems targeting safety. Smart sensing in ambient intelligence systems enables to enhance safety during cooking which is very important for aging people. Therefore, we worked on a proj...

Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is a vibrational spectroscopy holding potentials for a rapid evaluation of quality and composition of food industry products without any need of sample preparation. Among many nanomaterials, gold nanoparticl...

The need for an efficient Water Management System (WMS) is strongly felt by water utilities, municipalities and by medium to large scale corporates that have to face every day with problems dealing with water usage and supply Leveraging a sensor data...

Nowadays many studies are conducted to develop solutions for improving the performance of urban traffic networks. One of the main challenges is the necessary cooperation among different entities such as vehicles or infrastructure systems and exploit...

Two novel dicyanovinyl derivatives 3a–b were synthesized in moderate to good yields through a Knoevenagel reaction of the corresponding aldehyde precursors and malononitrile. The photophysical properties of the new push-pull systems were studied by U...

Compliance in robotic systems has been exploited to allow rigid mechanisms to come into contact with complex and possibly fragile objects. By incorporating compliance and instrumentation into a single device nearby objects can be detected before dire...

Modal Analysis is an experimental technique widely used to determine the dynamic response of structures. One of the most critical part is the selection of the actuator that will excite the tested structure. In many cases, traditional exciters, such a...

The objective of this article was to compare the performance of two vegetation indices (MODIS EVI (optical) and AMSR-E/ and TMI/TRMM LPRM VOD (microwave)) using an offline Bayesian change-point algorithm to monitor vegetation dynamics (retrospective...

The advent of Internet of Things and the evolution of wireless communication systems (towards 4G and 5G systems, as well as wireless sensor networks) is leading towards the implementation of context aware environments. The adoption of such scenarios...