Instrumentation Monthly Test | Measurement | Control
Sensors & Instrumentation Live celebrated its ten year anniversary in style when it returned to the NEC, Birmingham on 25 and 26 September 2019. The exhibition, sponsored by industry giant Mouser Electronics, brought together leading innovators and professionals from across the fields of sensors, test, measurement and control to explore solutions, discuss applications and do business face-to-face. New feature areas were introduced to celebrate ten years of the UK’s only national sensors exhibition, including the engaging Engineering Symposium, the informative Enterprise Hub and the lively Innovation in Action demonstration area.
There was a wide and diverse range of products to see at Sensors & Instrumentation Live. For example, Bronkhorst’s EL-FLOW Prestige, the newest generation of Bronkhorst Mass Flow Meters/Controllers, was on display at the event. The EL-Flow Prestige is designed for gas flow rates up to 100In/min and can now be equipped with an on-board pressure sensor.
Over on the DJB Instruments stand, visitors could see the company’s range of innovative and unique Konic Shear accelerometers. The company’s product range now also includes impact hammers, instrumentation, cable assemblies and an extensive selection of accessories.
LIMAB took the opportunity to showcase its range of infrared thermometers, thermal imagers and Fluoroptic fibre optic temperature sensors at the exhibition. Commenting on the exhibition, LIMAB’s Kevin Goodison and Jack Miller said: “Exhibitions such as Sensors & Instrumentation Live really do have an impact on the sector. It gives you a broad range of opportunities to interact with others in the marketplace and it brings like-minded individuals and industries together, which [we] think is wonderful.”
Over on the Nprime stand, visitors could view the company’s data capture solutions. Nprime’s Ciarán O’Shea commented: “Data capture is what we do. We create solutions, we don’t manufacture systems because we actually integrate them. We have many strengths: if people can’t afford to buy something – we rent it to them, and with test engineers becoming harder to come by we have 22 on hand to be deployed to each individual case at a minutes notice to head anywhere in the world.”
O’Shea added: “This exhibition is massively important to the industry. It gives you visibility within the sector by allowing visitors to discover your company, but also allows you to see your competitors and find out how they are operating.
“Sensors & Instrumentation Live is a great platform to look at the new generation of technology.”
Sensors and monitoring instruments for measuring pressure and SF6 gas density were on display at the Trafag stand. Amongst the products Trafag had on show was its new DPS digital pressure transmitter. The DPS digital pressure transmitter helps communications as it is fully connectable with an android app to monitor pressure and temperature. Commenting on the event, Trafag’s Robert Norris said: “We see it as a forum to meet new 
customers. We are always looking for new opportunities rather than catching up with our existing customer base.
“It is always nice to meet our competitors too as our head office is in Switzerland so we don’t always get the chance to come together in the same room.”
Top Hex returned to exhibit at Sensors & Instrumentation Live for a third successful year. This year, the company’s focus was on interfacing and communicating. The Top Hex team showcased the HART communication protocol from FieldComm Group. Top Hex’s Gary Weston & Noémi Fechete commented on the exhibition: “It’s great to meet people and to build contacts and network. Whether it is meeting people you have never heard of, interacting with suppliers and even learning more about competitors – it is a great opportunity to forge new connections.”
Visitors could see torque measurement solutions and wireless load sensors on the Sensor Technology stand. Tony Ingham, Sensor Technology’s Tony Ingham said: “There are big exhibitions in Germany, the US and India, so it is important that Sensors & Instrumentation Live continues to give people in the UK market somewhere to go for information on sensing and the supporting instrumentation.”
These are just a selection of the exhibitors who displayed their products at Sensors & Instrumentation Live. The exhibition covered all aspects of the test, measurement and control fields, and covered products that could be used across a myriad of industries.
Sensing Innovation- The Engineering Symposium
This year, for the first time, Sensors & Instrumentation Live teamed up with DJB Instruments to deliver CPD-accredited training to help delegates develop their understanding of sensors and instruments to improve the quality of data. The training was driven by sensor innovation and the very latest in engineering.
DJB brought together a team of speakers from leading technology and engineering companies from around the world. TTS Systems’ John Tyrrell kicked off the Engineering Symposium seminars with the talk “Strain Gauge Load Cells – the basics of use…”. Tyrrell covered the fundamentals of load cell use to ensure that gathered data is as useful as possible.
Centrateq’s Jim Flanagan followed with the seminar “Accelerometers, The Truth and more…”. Flanagan provided a fundamental overview of how a piezoelectric accelerometer operates and the key factors to ensure correct use and data accuracy.
In the afternoon, Ben Haest, Quality Electronics Design, discussed automation in environmental testing.
On the second day, Dr James Flint, senior lecturer in Wireless Systems Engineering, Loughborough University and head of the Communications Research Division, opened the seminar sessions with an interesting talk on power challenges for wireless sensors.
This was followed by The Modal Shop’s Marco Peres talking about excitation methods for experimental modal analysis.
Enterprise Hub
Over at the Enterprise Hub, new to Sensors & Instrumentation Live for 2019, visitors could learn how to grow their business from the experts. Representatives from some of the UK’s top organisations and institutions came along to talk about a variety of topics including funding opportunities and access to top technology. Daniel Watson kicked off Wednesday’s proceedings with an overview of Sensor City. He talked about Sensor City’s in-house laboratory facilities and technical expertise as well as providing case studies for successful projects.
The Defence and Security Accelerator’s Andrew Peaty described how innovators can work with DASA and what they are looking for in applications for funding. While in the afternoon Julian Moore, University of Birmingham’s Centre for Innovation in Advanced Measurement in Manufacturing (CIAMM), lead an engaging talk on quantum technology opportunities for SMEs.
On the Thursday, TÜV SÜD’s Joe Lomako provided an engaging overview of how sensor technology has, and continues to, change industry, in particular the connected factory. GAMBICA’s Scott Pepper, closed the Enterprise Hub sessions by considering the hype around industry 4.0 and what it means for SMEs.
Innovation in Action
Another new feature area for Sensors & Instrumentation Live 2019 was the Innovation In Action demonstration zone. Sponsored by PCB Piezotronics, Innovation in Action provided a truly unique way for visitors to gain a better insight into products from experts.
Kistler Instruments kicked off the demonstrations with their brand new data acquisition system – KiDAQ. KiDAQ allows you to create your test set-up, perform measurements and achieve accurate test results.
Marco Peres lead another exciting demonstration on PCB’s latest USB signal conditioner. He performed vibration tests using a shaker and demonstrated how the signal conditioner can be used to collect data on a smartphone or tablet – making it an easy-to-use, portable test solution.
Powelectric’s kicked off the second day of demonstrations with the new Metron4 IoT telemetry device. With innovative hardware, four analogue inputs, expansion cards for pulse counting,options for RS232, RS485 and CANBUS, Metron4 makes remote monitoring simple.
Powelectric’s Jennifer Mortiboy explained more about the product: “Metron4 is based on the same proven proven technology of our Metron2 telemetry hardware, but this one now uses 4G as well. So in countries such as the US and Australia, where the 2G network has been closed down, our old product wouldn’t have worked, but now we can embrace a truly global deployment.”
AquaConnex’s Keith Jones closed the Innovation in Action demonstrations by showcasing Evolution II. Jones reviewed the basic elements of the system, the manner in which its intelligent sensor interfaces control data and alarm limits, future system developments and data handling. Jones later explained that Sensors & Instrumentation Live had been beneficial for AquaConnex: “The enquiries have been absolutely excellent. We had 20 great enquiries on the first day and I would say that we are projecting to hit the same today.
“I would say that this exhibition is very important to the industry. While we don’t manufacturer sensors, what we do is take the output from any of these sensors being showcased today and because some of them don’t have anywhere to send the data or any way of dealing with, capturing or logging the data. So we have had quite a lot of enquiries from sensor manufacturers that have said they will point their clients to us for a control and data system using their own sensors.”
Innovation Showcase
The ever-popular Innovation Showcase, sponsored by Bronkhorst, returned to Sensors & Instrumentation Live 2019. With so much to be seen on the lively exhibition floor, the Innovation Showcase provided a ‘snapshot’ of what was on offer. Products on display included Keller’s LEO Record and Mantracourt’s Bluetooth Telemetry Transmitter. Bronkhorst also displayed its Mini CORI-FLOW, EL-FLOW Prestige and ES-FLOW.
A perfect platform
The ten year anniversary of Sensors & Instrumentation Live brought together market-leading companies and experts to deliver a valuable experience for visitors. Discussing the event, a visitor from Load Monitoring Systems commented: “It is really good for picking up new technology. As you can imagine, it is always a priority to look for new applications and this is the perfect platform to look out for something better.” While a representative from Seaspeed Marine Consultant said “It is a great opportunity to meet companies that I didn’t know that are potentially useful to our needs. It is an eye-opening show.”
Details about the next Sensors & Instrumentation Live exhibition will be announced soon on the event website: www.sensorsandinstrumentationlive.co.uk