Week 7 - Movement Sensors

There are many different types of movement sensors that can be used to open a door, turn on a light, flush a toilet, or most importantly protect us. Ask yourself this, when your wife tells you to pick up milk on the way home from work and you get out of the car to walk into the store, do you think about the movement sensor that opens the door for you saving you from the embarrassment of running into a door? I would say you probably don’t. This is a perfect example of how seamlessly sensors fit into our daily lives without us even thinking about how they work or what was done before them.

For store entrances, an active sensor is used to detect a change in frequencies. The high frequency sound waves are sent out, bounce off all of the surfaces, and return noticing any changes in the environment.

As everyone knows, public restrooms aren’t places people want to be touching everything in. For that reason, an infrared sensor is used to flush the toilets, turn on the faucets and the hand dryers. Infrared sensors are passive, which means that instead of emitting energy like the active sensor it detects radiation emitted by other objects. This is not only useful in public restrooms but also in the application of alarm systems, since the sensitivity can be set to the temperature of the human body thus preventing any false alarms.

Although the common uses of movement sensors were discussed, there are some very interesting ways in which movement sensors are and will be used in the future. For example, it is possible for doctors to place a movement sensor into bones during surgeries to monitor the progress of repairs. This just proves movement sensors will only continue to increase in popularity as we seek to make things more convenient and efficient.

Comments on other Posts:

Ian Lagrange de Carvalho:

Since we are both smart guys, we used the same source. This means some if not all of our content is the same. I like how you mentioned about the safety factor of motion detectors on doors whereas I was just simple focused on the convenience of them.

Teddy Bruder:

I enjoyed learning more about ultrasonic, microwave, and tomographic motion detectors because I did not touch on any of them. It was difficult for me to understand what a tomographic motion detector does so I look forward to talking in greater detail about it during class.

References

http://illumin.usc.edu/printer/165/motion-sensors/

http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/35351/what-is-the-difference-between-types-of-motion-sensors