UNM Scientists Develop A More Accessible Sensor

UNM Scientists Develop A More Accessible Sensor

The Smart Management of Infrastructure Laboratory (SMILab), located at the University of New Mexico (UNM) Center for Advanced Research Computing (CARC), has announced that as a part of the Low-Cost Efficient Wireless Intelligent Sensors (LEWIS) project, the have developed a new strain sensor called the LEWIS-S.

What are strain sensors? They are sensors used to measure the stresses of structures whether in normal loads or extreme loads. The benefit of the LEWIS-S sensor is that it is wireless, portable, easy to use and is a lot more affordable. It is about 5% of the cost of standard commercial strain sensing equipment!

One of the primary goals of the LEWIS project is to make monitoring systems more accessible to the public. SMILab Director and Assistant Professor Fernando Moreu, who is also a New Mexico Consortium affiliate, states, “If owners can build their own sensors on their own desk, then they will become familiar with the technology [and] the data, and willing to implement more advanced analysis and monitoring systems that they trust/understand.”

Due to it’s low cost, the LEWIS-S sensor may also prove beneficial to educators and university researchers. To learn more about this project on how UNM scientists develop a new strain sensor see the CARC article: SMILab develops new low-cost strain sensor.

Above photo courtesy of Eric Robbins. The LEWIS-S sensor device is wireless, portable, and produces data that can be saved to an SD card. These qualities make it an ideal sensor.

Article by Carrie Talus, NMC

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