Innovative smart pressure sensors set to disrupt HMI, electronic switches and sensors markets
Smart material pressure sensors have won ‘Breakthrough of the Year’ at the Business Green Technology Awards 2017.
Quantum Technology Supersensors has won Breakthrough of the Year at the UK’s prestigious Business Green Technology Awards for its smart material pressure sensors which enable electronic environmental impact reduction, novel Human Machine Interfaces and differentiating and sustainable product innovation.
The Awards took place on on 1st December at the Institution of Engineering and Technology in London. The judges agreed this breakthrough technology could bring environmentally friendly sensors to multiple industries, providing huge efficiency gains across the entire green economy.
These smart QTSS‚Ñ¢ materials come in a number of forms including inks, coatings, paints, sheets and foams. They are flexible, moldable, low power processing, robust, suitable for harsh environments and can be printed directly onto most surfaces including paper, textiles and electronic or recyclable substrates. QTSS‚Ñ¢ materials are relevant to all markets and applications to create 2D and 3D single and multi-touch pressure/force/touch sensors. They are simple to deploy and compatible with open source software.
3D shaped touch surfaces can be created using QTSS™ smart materials which can sense both X and Y position ‘AND’ Z pressure/force in the third dimension. By combining printed electronics and molding technologies new user interfaces and 3D touch surfaces are feasible and touch capability can become structurally integrated in devices allowing new design opportunities, space saving, assembly simplification, weight reduction, low power processing and cost saving…a perfect fit for electric transportation and tomorrow’s products… and a move from 2D touch capability to a 3D force touch capability.
Printed electronics enable new components and functionalities. The printing of thin, flexible and lightweight electronic sensors using large scale high volume manufacturing processes opens up a host of design opportunities in key market sectors such as automotive, aerospace, IOT, healthcare, consumer, industrial, robotics, smart homes and packaging. Environmentally friendly QTSS™ inks allow the creation of interactive products from disposable/recyclable paper pressure sensors through to 3D ‘force touch’ flexible screens, IOT data collection devices and robotic skin with a cost and functionality that cannot be achieved with conventional electronics.
QTSS™ technology is being deployed in textile wearables, footwear and seating by its licensee Infi-Tex, and they have already been selected by the UK’s Department for International Trade as one of the UK’s 30 brightest tech innovations for their work with interactive textiles and have won the Wearables Technology Show 2017 Innovation Award.
Serial innovator and founder, David Lussey commented “Novel functional materials can play a significant role in solving global challenges including reducing the environmental impact of sensors and electronics and the need for low power processing and it is a great tribute to our hardworking and dedicated team who are thrilled to have received this award.
Our vision is for these flexible, robust, printable and moldable electronic sensors to enable the creation of exciting new products able to enhance the interface between the physical and digital world in an environmentally friendly way.”
David Lussey presented innovations from Quantum Technology Supersensors at KTN’s Chemistry & Industrial Biotechnology Showcase 2017, in the session on Functional Materials for Targeted Properties.
You can find out more about Quantum Technology Supersensors here.
If you would like to discuss opportunities for innovation in areas such as robotics, 3D printing, photonics, graphene, quantum technologies and materials characterisation to name a few, you can also contact a member of the KTN Team.
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