Light source position microsensor

There exist industrial applications where an accurate estimation of a light source position is needed. That is the case for a heliostat, a device that projects sunlight upon a focus hundreds of meters distant. In this paper a novel sensor design to generate an alignment sensor signal is presented. A detailed study of its response is included, showing that there exist several design parameters to achieve a desired accuracy. This sensor has been implemented using bipolar technology and chip to board bonding, and experimental results obtained in the laboratory are given.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Evaluation of Lu-177-Dotatate treatment in patients with metastatic neuroendocrine tumors and prognostic factors

BACKGROUND: (177)Lu peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) is a recently approved therapy in Spain that has been demonstrated to be a well-tolerated therapy for positive somatostatin receptor advanced gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. AIM: To determine the impact of PRRT on quality of life, radiologic and metabolic response, overall survival, prognostic factors and toxicity. METHODS: Thirty-six patients treated with (177)Lu-PRRT from 2016 to 2019 were included. The most frequent location of the primary tumor was the gastrointestinal tract (52.8%), pancreas (27.8%), and nongastropancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (11.1%). The liver was the most common site of metastasis (91.7%), followed by distant nodes (50.0%), bone (27.8%), peritoneum (25.0%) and lung (11.1%). Toxicity was evaluated after the administration of each dose. Treatment efficacy was evaluated by two parameters: stable disease and disease progression in response evaluation criteria in solid tumors 1.1 criterion and prognostic factors were tested. RESULTS: From 36 patients, 55.6% were men, with a median age of 61.1 +/- 11.8 years. Regarding previous treatments, 55.6% of patients underwent surgery of the primary tumor, 100% of patients were treated with long-acting somatostatin analogues, 66.7% of patients were treated with everolimus, 27.8% of patients were treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitor, and 27.8% of patients were treated with interferon. One patient received radioembolization, three patients received chemoembolization, six patients received chemotherapy. Hematological toxicity was registered in 14 patients (G1-G2: 55.5% and G3: 3.1%). Other events presented were intestinal suboclusion in 4 cases, cholestasis in 2 cases and carcinoid crisis in 1 case. The median follow-up time was 3 years. Currently, 24 patients completed treatment. Nineteen are alive with stable disease, two have disease progression, eight have died, and nine are still receiving treatment. The median overall survival was 12.5 mo (95% confidence interval range: 9.8-15.2), being inversely proportional to toxicity in previous treatments (P < 0.02), tumor grade (P < 0.01) and the presence of bone lesions (P = 0.009) and directly proportional with matching lesion findings between Octreoscan and computed tomography pre-PRRT (P < 0.01), , primary tumor surgery (P = 0.03) and metastasis surgery (P = 0.045). In a multivariate Cox regression analysis, a high Ki67 index (P = 0.003), a mismatch in the lesion findings between Octreoscan and computed tomography pre-PRRT (P < 0.01) and a preceding toxicity in previous treatments (P < 0.05) were risk factors to overall survival. CONCLUSION: Overall survival was inversely proportional to previous toxicity, tumor grade and the presence of bone metastasis and directly proportional to matching lesion findings between Octreoscan and computed tomography pre-PRRT and primary tumor and metastasis surgery

Activation of different MEMS resonant modes with pulsed digital oscillators

The objective of this work is to show that is possible to excite different vibration modes of MEMS resonators using Pulsed Digital Oscillators. This class of circuits exhibit two different behaviours: the oscillation and the anti-oscillation mode. In the oscillation mode, th eoscillator in average provides energy to the resonator, whereas in the anti-oscillation mode, it extracts energy of the resonator until a limit cyucle is reached near the origin. It will be shown that by preparing suitable PDO configurations it is possible to selectively excite different resonant modes of MEMS resonator. The exprimental corroboration has been obtained with a scanning Doopler vibrometer.Postprint (published version

Activation of different MEMS resonant modes with pulsed digital oscillators

The objective of this work is to show that is possible to excite different vibration modes of MEMS resonators using Pulsed Digital Oscillators. This class of circuits exhibit two different behaviours: the oscillation and the anti-oscillation mode. In the oscillation mode, th eoscillator in average provides energy to the resonator, whereas in the anti-oscillation mode, it extracts energy of the resonator until a limit cyucle is reached near the origin. It will be shown that by preparing suitable PDO configurations it is possible to selectively excite different resonant modes of MEMS resonator. The exprimental corroboration has been obtained with a scanning Doopler vibrometer

Activation of different MEMS resonant modes with pulsed digital oscillators

The objective of this work is to show that is possible to excite different vibration modes of MEMS resonators using Pulsed Digital Oscillators. This class of circuits exhibit two different behaviours: the oscillation and the anti-oscillation mode. In the oscillation mode, th eoscillator in average provides energy to the resonator, whereas in the anti-oscillation mode, it extracts energy of the resonator until a limit cyucle is reached near the origin. It will be shown that by preparing suitable PDO configurations it is possible to selectively excite different resonant modes of MEMS resonator. The exprimental corroboration has been obtained with a scanning Doopler vibrometer

Light source position microsensor

There exist industrial applications where an accurate estimation of a light source position is needed. That is the case for a heliostat, a device that projects sunlight upon a focus hundreds of meters distant. In this paper a novel sensor design to generate an alignment sensor signal is presented. A detailed study of its response is included, showing that there exist several design parameters to achieve a desired accuracy. This sensor has been implemented using bipolar technology and chip to board bonding, and experimental results obtained in the laboratory are given.Peer Reviewe

Improving resilience of sensors in planetary exploration using data-driven models

Improving the resilience of sensor systems in space exploration is a key objective since the environmental conditions to which they are exposed are very harsh. For example, it is known that the presence of flying debris and Dust Devils on the Martian surface can partially damage sensors present in rovers/landers. The objective of this work is to show how data-driven methods can improve sensor resilience, particularly in the case of complex sensors, with multiple intermediate variables, feeding an inverse algorithm (IA) based on calibration data. The method considers three phases: an initial phase in which the sensor is calibrated in the laboratory and an IA is designed; a second phase, in which the sensor is placed at its intended location and sensor data is used to train data-driven model; and a third phase, once the model has been trained and partial damage is detected, in which the data-driven algorithm is reducing errors. The proposed method is tested with the intermediate data of the wind sensor of the TWINS instrument (NASA InSight mission), consisting of two booms placed on the deck of the lander, and three boards per boom. Wind speed and angle are recovered from the intermediate variables provided by the sensor and predicted by the proposed method. A comparative analysis of various data-driven methods including machine learning and deep learning (DL) methods is carried out for the proposed research. It is shown that even a simple method such as k-nearest neighbor is capable of successfully recovering missing data of a board compared to complex DL models. Depending on the selected missing board, errors are reduced by a factor between 2.43 and 4.78, for horizontal velocity; and by a factor between 1.74 and 4.71, for angle, compared with the situation of using only the two remaining boards