By Candace Stuart
Small Times Senior Writer

CHICAGO, June 8, 2001 — It’s not the Steppenwolf Theater, but the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Chicago provided a stage for about 250 exhibitors to promote their products Tuesday through Thursday.

Many were small tech companies such as Instrumented Sensor Technology, which uses MEMS strain gauges in “black boxes” for tracking shipments. Others were huge institutions like NASA, which implants MEMS-based microphones in wind tunnels for its noise-reduction research.

Here are some special kudos for this year’s productions:

Best in show: The Norwegian company SensoNor got the 2001 Sensors Expo top prize for a new product Wednesday for its MEMS gyro. SensoNor, which already makes MEMS accelerometers for airbags and MEMS pressure sensors for vehicle tires, sees a market for the gyro in automotive and aviation systems.

The gyro senses tilt, which makes it an attractive candidate for makers of side airbags in vehicles.

The silicon-based MEMS gyro unit is about a centimeter by less than a centimeter — about 10 times smaller than conventional gyros — and is much less expensive, according to Ole-Henrik Gusland, technical manager for the SensoNor subsidiary Capto. He would not say how much a gyro costs, but said General Motors has contracted with a Tier One supplier to use it in GM vehicles.

Best overall production: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration provided a genuine showstopper with its technology exhibit and theater. It combined hands-on demonstrations of nifty small tech devices and their inner workings with short but instructive presentations on NASA’s research and development opportunities.

Viewers could expose a MEMS-based sensor, made by Makel Engineering Inc., to hydrogen and see the response on screen. Makel supplies hydrogen sensors to NASA to monitor hydrogen fuel in various aircraft and spacecraft.

Or they could chat with any of a handful of NASA researchers and managers about MEMS and nanotechnology projects. A wind tunnel peppered with MEMS microphones is helping researchers design quieter aircraft.

Others are applying very strong carbon nanotubes into the surface material on aircraft to produce an outer coating that ripples subtly — just as a shark’s skin does, helping it dart through water. Researchers believe a nanoskin layer on aircraft would improve its performance.

Best dialogue: Harley Thronson, technology director in NASA’s Space Science Enterprise, is a veteran of the stage. His double-digit years lecturing to astronomy students at the University of Wisconsin showed in his humorous but comprehensive keynote address Tuesday.

Science needs innovative technologies to progress, and NASA sees small tech as a key contributor in its efforts to explore space, he said.

Best supporting actor/actress: Oscar T. Robot, a NASA android who entertained visitors with his banter. His charmingly flawed auditory capabilities were suspiciously similar to a human’s, leading to an occasional mispronouncing of a name and scrutiny from some engineers, who suspected somewhere lurked a man behind the curtain.

While Oscar’s inner workings remained a mystery (are there any MEMS in there?) his origin did not. Oscar is a product of NASA’s National Technology Center in Wheeling, W.Va. Technically he is a Pro-bot, for promotional robot. “But please don’t call me that.”

Best set production: BEI Technologies, particularly its Systron Donner Inertial Division from Concord, Calif., gets the award for flash with its glittering display of quartz-based MEMS gyros. BEI used display cases similar to a high-end jeweler’s that showcased its synthetic and natural quartz crystals and crystal-based gyros.

BEI’s gyros are used by many top automakers — Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, Saab, Volvo, Cadillac, Oldsmobile and others — for applications such as antilock braking, said Charlie Dellamore, a BEI applications engineer. The technology can help prevent vehicles from skidding or flipping over.

The MEMS gyro detects when a vehicle is tilting dangerously and sends a signal to the anti-lock brake computer system. The ABS is applied automatically, independent of the driver, pulling the vehicle out of the skid.

Quartz makes an especially good material, Dellamore said, because it is more sturdy and durable than silicon, which allows BEI to make a very precise sensor. But it also is more costly, at $75 a unit.

Best in staging: There’s nothing like a shiny black two-door five-speed BMW Z3 for drawing a crowd. Kistler Instrument Corp. of Amherst, N.Y., used the sporty model to demonstrate its numerous technologies for designing things as varied as cars, buildings and bridges.

The Beemer had two sensor technologies attached to its wheels — neither using MEMS — to help engineers design wheels, rims and other parts. But Kistler incorporates many MEMS into other tools, according to Donald Beehler, of the Kistler’s marketing division.

Kistler offers numerous research and development tools that include MEMS-based motion and vibration sensors for constructing vehicles, ships, bridges and buildings, he said.

Best in lighting: Instrumented Sensor Technology of Okemos, Mich., gets the award for technology that uses MEMS strain gauges in a black box that is inserted into shipments to record when the goods have been badly mishandled. Their clients include auto and rail companies that want to track shipments.

The box, which can be placed in rail cars or the packages themselves, records every jolt to the package or rail car, plus the time, date and intensity. Shippers use its data to determine who is at fault when a shipment is damaged.

The recorders sell for between $4,500 and $8,000 but they are reusable and can take a beating for more than 10 years, said IST manager Donald Hatfield.

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CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Candace Stuart at [email protected] or call 734-994-1106, ext. 233.