Keywords
Citation
Bogue, R. (2005), "Sensor technology handbook", Sensor Review, Vol. 25 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2005.08725cae.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Sensor technology handbook
Jon S. Wilson (Ed)Newnes/ElsevierDecember 2004704 pp. plus CD-ROMISBN 0-7506-7729-5£64.99 (hardcover) www.elsevier.com
Keywords: Sensors, Books
This multiple-author text appears to attempt the impossible: to cover virtually the entire sensors field. The 22 chapters, which vary in length from 1½ to 30 pages, cover fundamentals, signal conditioning, sensor types and sensing phenomena, and are mostly written by marketing and applications professionals from American sensor manufacturers. Together with the 12 appendices, they cover a great deal of ground and whilst underlying principles, technologies and some new developments are covered, the emphasis is very much on practical information for users, such as sensor selection, characteristics, standards and applications. However, several important topics are given only superficial treatment, such as gas and chemical sensors, whilst others, notably shock and vibration sensing, are discussed in no less than three separate chapters.
Unfortunately, this book contains several errors, as well as potentially misleading statements which often arise from the incorrect importance attributed to certain classes of sensors. For instance, the commercially unimportant CHEMFETs are discussed whilst the market leading electrochemical and catalytic gas sensors receive no mention; "span" is confused with "dynamic range"; magnetoresistors are not a type of Hall sensor; and the definition of a sensor in the book's very first line is incorrect or at least only applicable to physical sensors.
The appendices contain a great deal of technical information, including lists of SI units, conversion factors, exhaustive lists of physical constants, including many of no apparent relevance to sensor technology such as the mass ratios of sub-atomic particles, and a listing of material properties which curiously includes the thermal conductivities of snow and limestone but not of silicon. The book concludes with a list of American or US-based sensor suppliers with full contact details and also provides product and other data for those that contributed to the text. It contains much practical information and is competitively priced but prospective purchasers should be mindful of the above criticisms.
Robert Bogue