Recent Developments in Transducers

The technological advances of the last few years have led to an increased interest in transducers, particularly in devices suitable for direct interfacing to microprocessor systems. Most fields of measurement have progressed rapidly, but we will concentrate here on simple transducers rather than transducer systems (for force measurements, flow measurement etc.). Three areas stand out: optical-fibre transducers, resonator sensors and solid-state transducers. In each case important advances have already been made, but there is an exciting potential for developments in the next few years.