This paper presents a comparative study of three types of surface acoustic waves sensors (SAW) used for particulate matter (PM) detection.
These sensors are placed in a cascade impactor as impaction plates. Monitoring their phase variation allows us to know the quantity of fine particles present in the environment with high accuracy. Until now, the sensors used in our prototype are built on quartz substrate and present a good sensitivity to fine particles. One major concern in our application is the fouling of the sensor’s surface with particles upon long periods of exposure. This shaped our drive to develop a self- cleaning sensor relying on other substrates with a stronger electromechanical coupling coefficient (K²). Hence, the aim of this study is to demonstrate the possibility of using strongly coupled piezoelectric substrates for an accurate PM detection as well as a self-cleaning process.

One of the most important components in microscopy is the illumination and imaging numerical aperture (NA). Together with the wavelength it sets the final limits and capabilities of the microscopy system. In scatterometry and ptychography a precise knowledge of the NA is required for the reconstruction algorithm. Here the uncertainty of values supplied by the manufactures are often to large, impairing the measurement capability of the system. In this research we demonstrate a method to measure the numerical aperture with high precision and thereby improve optical microscopy measurements.

In the Oil & Gas Industry, large fleets of centrifugal pumps are used for different services working in diverse process conditions. More specifically in oil refineries, they have many characteristics in common since they are centrifugal machines that handle liquids using the same operating principle and because their design is highly standardized by API 610/ISO 13709 std for centrifugal pumps and API 682 std for sealing systems. As well, operating units and refining processes are well known and do not differ much regardless of where they are installed. Due to their criticality in the refining process, the reliability of these assets is of the utmost importance, being the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) one of the most used KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for evaluating it. Considering the characteristics indicated above, the possibility of predicting the MTBF of centrifugal pumps based on historical failure data, design features and expected operating conditions with Cox Proportional Hazards Model (PHM) is suggested.

Nowadays production companies are in a difficult situation since batch sizes are decreasing, the number of product variants is growing, and the demand is difficult to forecast. New technologies enable to design more complex production systems capable of handling these challenges, but these “Industry 4.0 solutions” are often very expensive and hard to implement. In Bosch Power Tool Ltd. (Hungary), a flexible manufacturing concept was implemented, which enables to produce efficiently even with batch size one, requires much less space from the shop floor, prevents disruptions in production, and last but not least realized in from a relatively small budget. The concept introduced in this paper can be used as a best practice for manufacturing companies facing similar challenges.

Wearable technology in healthcare refers to medical devices for real-time monitoring of a wide variety of biomedical parameters of the human body. The Health 4.0 scenario has led to the rapid development of these systems in all fields of medicine. However, a wearable non-invasive device for skin health monitoring for skin hydration control or cancer prevention is still an open challenge. In this regard, this paper addresses the design and the implementation of a low-cost portable system for skin diagnostics purposes which is based-on microwave reflectometry technique. For this purpose, a specific sensing element (SE), connected to a miniaturized vector network analyzer (m-VNA) has been designed and assessed for the optimal detection of the variation of the dielectric properties of the skin. The proposed system has been validated, first, through full wave simulations, then, directly on human skin, demonstrating a good potential for achieving a fully wearable system for skin monitoring and diagnostics.