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- Sensors Magazine
Since its inception in 1999, the Best of Sensors Expo Awards has sought to recognize those new products that meet our criteria for timeliness, distinctiveness, potential impact, application, and relation to the scope of Sensors. In other words, is the product commercially available and has it been introduced since the last Sensors Expo? is it unique, or at least markedly different from what's out there? Does it have the potential to change the way people work? Does it fulfill a real need? And is it a sensor or related to sensing in some way? We think that this year's winners are excellent examples of devices that meet this criteria; let me introduce you to them...
MicroStrain Inc. took home two silver awards, both in the Data Acquisition category. The first silver award was for the mXRS extended-range synchronized wireless sensing system that builds on the company's wireless DA expertise, offering a transmission range of up to 2 km and the ability to synchronize all data to within ±32 µs by using the company's beaconing protocols to synchronize precision timekeepers embedded within each sensor node in the WSN. The base station coordinates data collection from all sensor nodes and can synchronize and collect data from 2016 nodes at 2 Hz; 224 nodes at 16 Hz; 32 nodes at 128 Hz; or 4 nodes at 512 Hz. The combination of scalability, seriously synchronized data, and long transmission range impressed the judges.
MicroStrain's second silver award was for the SensorCloud platform that supports any Web-connected third-party device, sensor, or sensor network. The judges loved that this product leverages cloud technology to make large-scale sensor networks more useful by providing powerful sensor data storage, visualization, analysis, and remote management tools designed for and tailored to working with huge data sets. Said Martella, "if wireless sensor networking really is going to become as pervasive as we predict, tools such as this—to store, manage, analyze, and use the vast quantities of data that will result—are key to their successful and efficient adoption."
