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Sensors based on semiconductors like silicon are becoming increasingly important as Stephen McClelland found out.

Hitachi, Fanuc and Nachi have developed off‐line programming systems. John Hartley reports

Many companies develop vision systems, but ultrasonics is now being used for some applications. John Hartley describes an unusual force‐sensing system from Hitachi.

As announced in the May issue of Hybrid Circuits, ISHM‐Benelux is organising a one‐day conference on applications of hybrid circuit technology.

Sensor Review publishes the results of a major sensor survey.

ISHM‐Benelux held its 1987 Autumn Conference on 29 October, at the Antwerp Crest Hotel. This one‐day meeting focused on applications of hybrid circuit technology in various fields of electronic and related industries.

An integrated sensor with three elements (zinc oxide, tin oxide and tungsten oxide) was fabricated by thick film techniques in order to develop a smell sensor. Using this sensor and pattern recognition method, the possibility of identifying 15 chemical compounds which belong to the alcohol, ester, ketone, benzene and hydrocarbon group was examined. The following results were obtained: All 15 compounds have different patterns, so they can be individually identified; compounds which have the same functional groups have similar patterns; and, when gas sensitivity of three elements is displayed in a three‐dimensional space, the compounds with the same functional group form a specific closed space. This indicates that the sensor can identify functional groups of chemical compounds.

Gyroscopes are simply devices which measure rotation. For robotic applications the gyro output can be used to determine rotation rate, altitude or heading and can be combined with other sensor inputs to determine position. A wide range of robots and autonomous vehicles are currently used in fibre gyros, and many more are likely to be used in the future.