What technologies do China need to develop most in the future?
Is it chips or 5G technology?
They may all have them, but all of these important technologies rely on a humble piece of equipment: a sensor.
How important are sensors?
Japan ranked it as one of the top 10 technologies in the last century, and their business community has commented that whoever rules the sensor will rule the new era.
The world, such as China, the United States and Germany, has listed sensors as a major future science and technology project, and desperately want to achieve technological breakthroughs in sensors, which is enough to show its importance.
Many of you may wonder what a sensor is, and why a piece of equipment that is so unfamiliar to ordinary people is being taken so seriously by the world's major powers.
Today we're going to talk a little bit about sensor technology and how it's changing the world. [Text version: How Important sensors are]
Who is the sensor?
To make it easier to understand, let me introduce the concept of sensors.
Simply put, sensor can be understood from its literal meaning, is a kind of induction and conversion equipment, it can detect the temperature, sound, light and other information, and then convert them into the machine above the current, voltage (electrical signal), etc., with it, the machine produced by human beings can realize intelligent.
Let's take an example: a cell phone has a lot of functions, it can take pictures, make calls, play games, right?
So how does this work? What happens is that sensors pick up information on the outside of the phone and convert it into electricity so that we humans can control the phone.
For example, when taking a photo, it is the lens that captures the light of the object and transmits it to the image sensor. The sensor detects the corresponding light and converts it into an electrical signal, which is processed and displayed, and then becomes the photo we see on the mobile phone.
Therefore, the image sensor is equivalent to the eye of the mobile phone, which is the core part of shooting.
There are also different sensors on the mobile phone, which can convert sound, pressure and other information into electrical signals, so as to realize the functions of phone call and fingerprint unlocking. If the chip is the brain of the mobile phone, then the sensor and network are the facial features and nerves of the mobile phone, one is used to convert into electrical signals, the other is used to transmit information.
Today's smartphones are not even mobile phones without sensors.
Therefore, sensor, computer and communication technology have become the three foundations of modern information technology, and sensor will gradually surpass the other two in the future, which is considered by experts as the core technology of the Internet of Things, and will change the present and future world.
Is this an exaggeration? How did it change the world?
Sensors from ancient China
It, but also from the Chinese ancient times, early Chinese invented the compass, is known to all that time also called SiNa, it is actually a kind of sensor, Pointers can sense the earth's magnetic field, and then indicate the direction, the compass later introduced into Europe, and led to the European big hna era, to speed up the integration of the whole world.
Would it be an understatement to say that it changed the course of the world?
Sensors like the compass, such as the seismograph, coronagraph, and thermometer, have all changed human life in a way, which means that sensors have been influencing the world since very early on.
But that doesn't explain the importance of sensors, because there was no concept of sensors at the time, they were presented as a whole.
It was only in the mid-20th century that sensors really stood on their own and became more and more important with each iteration of technology.
Sensor technology iteration
The first generation of sensors is: structural sensor, born in the 1950s, is the first industrial mass production of sensors, a typical representative is: resistive sensor, 90% of which are used to weigh above, about like this:.
Like a scale is a kind of weighing, when we stand on it, the pointer will find a change or show a weight.
Its principle is also very simple, it is made of metal material, can conduct electricity, we stand on it, this metal will change shape, shape change will cause resistance and current change, so the pointer or number will change.
Basically every baby needs to be weighed first after birth. It can be said that this is the first electronic product that human beings touch. It affects everyone, right?
Of course, the sensors of this period were relatively rough and limited. Later, some intelligent people thought: can these metals be changed into other things, such as light-sensitive materials, can they be converted into electrical signals?
The answer is yes, of course. The core component of the image sensor mentioned above is the light sensor, so in the 1970s, the physical sensor was born.
So since physical sensors can convert light that can't be touched or touched into electrical signals, can heat with temperature be converted into electrical signals? If heat can do the same, can sound, magnetic fields and other physical properties be converted into electrical signals?
Also can be the answer, so the sensor material from metal to semiconductor, dielectric, magnetic materials, and so on all kinds of solid materials, and its structure is simple, mainly sensitive components and conversion components, as the name implies, the sensitive element is used for induction (testing) information of the outside world, conversion is the sensing information is converted into electrical signals.
The second generation of sensors, is much more than the first generation of rich, not only the variety, but also more and more functions, like common switch in our life, only the manual before, now has a sound sensing, photographic, and touch screen, use different sensors, and is also in the field of military radar, infrared sensors, millimeter wave radar, infrared, radar, etc. It's a different sensor.
These sensors have been made into a variety of detection equipment, sensors have begun to enter various fields of human beings, at this time the industry has believed that without sensors to detect all kinds of information, then modern science and technology, can not be developed.
But this is not over, human pursuit of science and technology is endless, the functions of various devices are increasing, the demand for sensors is also increasing, a device may require a variety of functions, this time may be a device needs to install a variety of sensors.
The typical one is the screen. In the past, as long as you can touch or swipe the screen, you can control the phone and other devices, but now the screen also needs fingerprint unlock and other functions.
But to do all this, there's a fatal problem: You can't fit many sensors into a device that's too small.
To solve this problem, people came up with a solution, can you recombine multiple sensors and integrate them into a single sensor? And that's where integrated sensors come in, where you combine a lot of sensors together or you combine sensors with other components.
More common mobile phone fingerprint sensor, it is by light, pressure, temperature and other sensors integrated.
But it didn't stop there, and then people started thinking, if sensors can be combined with sensors, can sensors be combined with other technologies to make the performance of sensors even better?
The answer is yes, so integrated sensor chip also appeared, it will sensor and small chip and other components together, so that the sensor can not only sense and transform signals, but also can process signals, performance improved, this is the third generation of intelligent sensor predecessor.
It can be said that the emergence of integrated sensors pushes sensors to a new height.
It's hard for the average person to understand how important sensors are at this point, but you'll see for example.
A mobile phone has at least a dozen sensors, a high-end car has more than 200 sensors, a plane has more than 1,000 sensors, and our common high-speed rail can reach more than 5,000 sensors.
Sensors are hidden in every piece of equipment, and without them, high-speed trains, airplanes, even space stations,
The famous American magazine Forbes has made a list of the top 10 technologies that have changed the world and people's lives, and sensors rank first.
This is the beginning of the Japanese business saying: who controls the sensor, who controls the new era.
But do you think the glory of sensors ends there? Well, you're selling it short.
Sensor counterattack has never stopped, integrated sensor is the peak of hardware performance, but some experts are not satisfied, thinking that since the sensor can integrate hardware, then can the software technology also combined in? Further improve re-sensor performance?
The answer is still yes, and this is the third generation of sensors: smart sensors, which combine the advantages of hardware and software to take the performance of sensors up a notch.
If sensors were neck and neck with chips in the Internet era, experts are raising the status of sensors again, ahead of chips, in the Internet of Things era.
In 2018, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ranked "smart Sensing cities" as one of the 10 most representative technologies when selecting breakthrough technologies in the world.
Speaking of "smart cities", do you know how many sensors it will consume in the next ten years? The answer is: 40 billion. Is that beyond anyone's imagination?
In fact, sensor cities are not the ultimate application of sensors, but the Internet of everything is. Experts agree that smart sensors are the cornerstone of the Internet.
If you want to be connected, you need to realize the connection between the network world and the real world, and the sensor is the bridge of connection, which is also an opportunity for us ordinary people. Who controls the sensor, who controls the future.