Flow detectors having mechanical oscillators, and use thereof in flow characterization systems

An improved system (100), resonator flow detector (102) and method for characterizing a fluid sample that includes o injecting a fluid sample into a mobile phase of a flow characterization system (106), and detecting a property of the fluid sample > or of a component thereof with a flow detector (102) comprising a mechanical resonator (120), preferably one that is operated at a frequency less than about 1 MHz, such as tuning fork resonator

Engineering for a changing world: 60th Ilmenau Scientific Colloquium, Technische Universität Ilmenau, September 04-08, 2023 : programme

In 2023, the Ilmenau Scientific Colloquium is once more organised by the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The title of this year’s conference “Engineering for a Changing World” refers to limited natural resources of our planet, to massive changes in cooperation between continents, countries, institutions and people – enabled by the increased implementation of information technology as the probably most dominant driver in many fields. The Colloquium, supplemented by workshops, is characterised but not limited to the following topics: – Precision engineering and measurement technology Nanofabrication – Industry 4.0 and digitalisation in mechanical engineering – Mechatronics, biomechatronics and mechanism technology – Systems engineering – Productive teaming - Human-machine collaboration in the production environment The topics are oriented on key strategic aspects of research and teaching in Mechanical Engineering at our university

Reconfigurable Receiver Front-Ends for Advanced Telecommunication Technologies

The exponential growth of converging technologies, including augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, machine-to-machine and machine-to-human interactions, biomedical and environmental sensory systems, and artificial intelligence, is driving the need for robust infrastructural systems capable of handling vast data volumes between end users and service providers. This demand has prompted a significant evolution in wireless communication, with 5G and subsequent generations requiring exponentially improved spectral and energy efficiency compared to their predecessors. Achieving this entails intricate strategies such as advanced digital modulations, broader channel bandwidths, complex spectrum sharing, and carrier aggregation scenarios. A particularly challenging aspect arises in the form of non-contiguous aggregation of up to six carrier components across the frequency range 1 (FR1). This necessitates receiver front-ends to effectively reject out-of-band (OOB) interferences while maintaining high-performance in-band (IB) operation. Reconfigurability becomes pivotal in such dynamic environments, where frequency resource allocation, signal strength, and interference levels continuously change. Software-defined radios (SDRs) and cognitive radios (CRs) emerge as solutions, with direct RF-sampling receivers offering a suitable architecture in which the frequency translation is entirely performed in digital domain to avoid analog mixing issues. Moreover, direct RF- sampling receivers facilitate spectrum observation, which is crucial to identify free zones, and detect interferences. Acoustic and distributed filters offer impressive dynamic range and sharp roll off characteristics, but their bulkiness and lack of electronic adjustment capabilities limit their practicality. Active filters, on the other hand, present opportunities for integration in advanced CMOS technology, addressing size constraints and providing versatile programmability. However, concerns about power consumption, noise generation, and linearity in active filters require careful consideration.This thesis primarily focuses on the design and implementation of a low-voltage, low-power RFFE tailored for direct sampling receivers in 5G FR1 applications. The RFFE consists of a balun low-noise amplifier (LNA), a Q-enhanced filter, and a programmable gain amplifier (PGA). The balun-LNA employs noise cancellation, current reuse, and gm boosting for wideband gain and input impedance matching. Leveraging FD-SOI technology allows for programmable gain and linearity via body biasing. The LNA's operational state ranges between high-performance and high-tolerance modes, which are apt for sensitivityand blocking tests, respectively. The Q-enhanced filter adopts noise-cancelling, current-reuse, and programmable Gm-cells to realize a fourth-order response using two resonators. The fourth-order filter response is achieved by subtracting the individual response of these resonators. Compared to cascaded and magnetically coupled fourth-order filters, this technique maintains the large dynamic range of second-order resonators. Fabricated in 22-nm FD-SOI technology, the RFFE achieves 1%-40% fractional bandwidth (FBW) adjustability from 1.7 GHz to 6.4 GHz, 4.6 dB noise figure (NF) and an OOB third-order intermodulation intercept point (IIP3) of 22 dBm. Furthermore, concerning the implementation uncertainties and potential variations of temperature and supply voltage, design margins have been considered and a hybrid calibration scheme is introduced. A combination of on-chip and off-chip calibration based on noise response is employed to effectively adjust the quality factors, Gm-cells, and resonance frequencies, ensuring desired bandpass response. To optimize and accelerate the calibration process, a reinforcement learning (RL) agent is used.Anticipating future trends, the concept of the Q-enhanced filter extends to a multiple-mode filter for 6G upper mid-band applications. Covering the frequency range from 8 to 20 GHz, this RFFE can be configured as a fourth-order dual-band filter, two bandpass filters (BPFs) with an OOB notch, or a BPF with an IB notch. In cognitive radios, the filter’s transmission zeros can be positioned with respect to the carrier frequencies of interfering signals to yield over 50 dB blocker rejection

Magnetoresistive and Thermoresistive Scanning Probe Microscopy with Applications in Micro- and Nanotechnology

This work presents approaches to extend limits of scanning probe microscopy techniques towards more versatile instruments using integrated sensor concepts. For structural surface analysis, magnetoresistive sensing is introduced and thermoresistive sensing is applied to study nanoscale phonon transport in chain-like molecules. Investigating with these techniques the properties of shape memory polymers, a fabrication method to design application-inspired micro- and nanostructures is introduced

Development of the Beam Position Monitors for the Diagnostics of the Test Beam Line in the CTF3 at CERN

The work for this thesis is in line with the field of Instrumentation for Particle Accelerators, so called Beam Diagnostics. It is presented the development of a series of electro-mechanical devices called Inductive Pick-Ups (IPU) for Beam Position Monitoring (BPM). A full set of 17 BPM units (16 + 1 spare), named BPS units, were built and installed into the Test Beam Line (TBL), an electron beam decelerator, of the 3rd CLIC Test Facility (CTF3) at CERN ¿European Organization for the Nuclear Research¿. The CTF3, built at CERN by an international collaboration, was meant to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the key concepts for CLIC ¿Compact Linear Collider¿ as a future linear collider based on the novel two-beam acceleration scheme, and in order to achieve the next energy frontier for a lepton collider in theMulti-TeV scale. Modern particle accelerators and in particular future colliders like CLIC requires an extreme alignment and stabilization of the beam in order to enhance its quality, which rely heavily on a beam based alignment techniques. Here the BPMs, like the BPS-IPU, play an important role providing the beam position with precision and high resolution, besides a beam current measurement in the case of the BPS, along the beam lines. The BPS project carried out at IFIC was mainly developed in two phases: prototyping and series production and test for the TBL. In the first project phase two fully functional BPS prototypes were constructed, focusing in this thesis work on the electronic design of the BPS on-board PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) which are based on transformers for the current sensing and beam position measurement. Furthermore, it is described the monitor mechanical design with emphasis on all the parts directly involved in its electromagnetic functioning, as a result of the coupling of the EM fields generated by the beam with those parts. For that, it was studied its operational parameters, according the TBL specifications, and it was also simulated a new circuital model reproducing the BPS monitor frequency response for its operational bandwidth (1kHz-100MHz). These prototypes were initially tested in the laboratories of the BI-PI section¿Beam Instrumentation - Position and Intensity¿ at CERN. In the second project phase the BPS monitor series, which were built based on the experience acquired during the prototyping phase, the work was focused on the realization of the characterization tests to measure the main operational parameters of each series monitor, for which it was designed and constructed two test benches with different purposes and frequency regions. The first one is designed to work in the low frequency region, between 1kHz-100MHz, in the time scale of the electron beam pulse with a repetition period of 1s and an approximate duration of 140ns. This kind of test setups called Wire Test-bench are commonly used in the accelerators instrumentation field in order to determine the characteristic parameters of a BPM (or pick-up) like its linearity and precision in the position measurement, and also its frequency response (bandwidth). This is done by emulating a low current intensity beam with a stretched wire carrying a current signals which can be precisely positioned with respect the device under test. This test bench was specifically made for the BPS monitor and conceived to perform the measurement data acquisition in an automated way, managing the measurement equipment and the wire positioning motors controller from a PC workstation. Each one of the BPS monitors series were characterized by using this system at the IFIC labs, and the test results and analysis are presented in this work. On the other hand, the high frequency tests, above the X band in the microwave spectrum and at the time scale of the micro-bunch pulses with a bunching period of 83ps (12GHz) inside a long 140ns pulse, were performed in order to measure the longitudinal impedance of the BPS monitor. This must be low enough in order to minimize the perturbations on the beam produced at crossing the monitor, which affects to its stability during the propagation along the line. For that, it was built the high frequency test bench as a coaxial waveguide structure of 24mm diameter matched at 50¿ and with a bandwidth from 18MHz to 30GHz, which was previously simulated, and having room in the middle to place the BPS as the device under test. This high frequency test bench is able to reproduce the TEM (Transversal Electro-Magnetic) propagative modes corresponding to an ultra-relativistic electron beam of 12GHz bunching frequency, so that the Scattering parameters can be measured to obtain the longitudinal impedance of the BPS in the frequency range of interest. Finally, it is also presented the results of the beam test made in the TBL line, with beam currents from 3.5A to 13A (max. available at the moment of the test). In order to determine the minimum resolution attainable by a BPS monitor in the measurement of the beam position, being the device figure of merit, with a resolution goal of 5¿m at maximum beam current of 28A according to the TBL specifications.García Garrigós, JJ. (2013). Development of the Beam Position Monitors for the Diagnostics of the Test Beam Line in the CTF3 at CERN [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/34327TESI

Electromagnetic Metasurface Fabricated by Printed Electronics and Its Applications

Recently, metasurface plays significant roles in manipulation of electromagnetic waves. The main fabrication methods are MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) technology and PCB (Printed circuit board) technology. Both methods face the challenges of complex fabrication processes, high cost, and severe pollution. In this thesis, the digitalized reaction on demand (DRoD) method, as a new printed electronic technology, was proposed to address the problems. In this method, the substrate was coated by PVA and nanoparticle composite to form a mesoporous ink absorption layer, followed by reduction functionalization. A novel silver ink was formulated to solve the problems of low conductivity, nozzle blocking, and complex preparing processing. As a demonstration, EM metasurface was fabricated via digitally and precisely control of silver reduction reaction. Moreover, a roll to roll process of metasurface printing via DRoD method was demonstrated. The developed technology provides a solution to produce metasurface with low cost, high quality, and large scale

White Paper on Digital and Complex Information

Information is one of the main traits of the contemporary era. Indeed there aremany perspectives to define the present times, such as the Digital Age, the Big Dataera, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the fourth Paradigm of science, and in all ofthem information, gathered, stored, processed and transmitted, plays a key role.Technological developments in the last decades such as powerful computers, cheaperand miniaturized solutions as smartphones, massive optical communication, or theInternet, to name few, have enabled this shift to the Information age. This shift hasdriven daily life, cultural and social deep changes, in work and personal activities,on access to knowledge, information spreading, altering interpersonal relations orthe way we interact in public and private sphere, in economy and politics, pavingthe way to globalizationPeer reviewe

Internet of Things. Information Processing in an Increasingly Connected World

This open access book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the First IFIP International Cross-Domain Conference on Internet of Things, IFIPIoT 2018, held at the 24th IFIP World Computer Congress, WCC 2018, in Poznan, Poland, in September 2018. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 24 submissions. Also included in this volume are 4 WCC 2018 plenary contributions, an invited talk and a position paper from the IFIP domain committee on IoT. The papers cover a wide range of topics from a technology to a business perspective and include among others hardware, software and management aspects, process innovation, privacy, power consumption, architecture, applications