Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Movement Sensors


Prior to this week’s assigned research, I thought I understood the basic concept of movement sensors and how and why they were commonly used, yet as I continued doing my research I became more aware of the importance and dependability that other systems have over this system.  Movement sensors detect changes in positions of a person or object relative to its environment or the other way around.  There are six types of motion detectors that are commonly used including: infrared, optics, radio frequency energy, sound, vibration, and magnetism.

The types of movement sensor methods are mechanical and electronic methods.  Most people are unaware of the mechanical movement sensors around us, yet unknowingly we use these daily and vastly.  From the moment we wake up we use movement sensors such as the moment we turn our alarm clock off,  when dialing the heating time in our microwaves, typing in our computer keyboards or even the simple motion of flicking the light switch.  Electronic detection sensors are ones that detect optical or acoustical motion.  Examples of when we encounter these sensors include the ones that activate lighting, activate a camera to turn on, or even trigger an alarm. 

Because of the wide range of functions of movement sensors, these are the most used type of sensors.  Other types of sensors are dependent and rely on these sensors in order to activate or deactivate.  For pressure sensors, like my classmate C. Meraz explained, a piezoelectric pressure transducer uses crystal to convert motion into an electrical output since “these sensors are also highly susceptible to shock and vibration”.   With flow sensors, like Brian V says in his blog post, record measurements within a flow meter of flow of fluids or gases.  These measurements are found by observing the movement of such fluids or gases.  Matthew Tedesco also explains that “aside from mechanical flow meters, fluid velocity and flow can be measured using optic sensors”.  As explained before, optic motion sensors fall under the movement sensors category.  In conclusion, we can encounter movement sensors in our everyday life and they also play important roles in other practices.


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