To get the most out of the sensing revolution, different disciplines need to be on the same wavelength. This is a priority for the Nature Portfolio’s newest journal, Nature Sensors .
Driverless cars rely on sensors that both perceive and respond to their surroundings.Credit: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty
What do wearable technologies have in common with driverless cars? And what do observatories peering into outer space have in common with laboratories studying the deepest oceans?
A sense of home
All use sensing technologies that perceive and respond to their surroundings. There are myriad sensors for detecting electrical signals, motion, pressure, temperature, force, gradients, fingerprints, chemicals and more. Sensor technologies are embedded in our lives, playing a central part in the function of everyday items — mobile phones, smart televisions, induction hobs and smoke detectors, to name but a few. Think of a piece of technology, and there are probably one or more sensors involved. Several estimates suggest that the global market for sensor technologies will exceed US$500 billion within a decade.
This is a field on the move, and now it has a new journal. Earlier this month, Nature Sensors launched with a mission1 to “convene the global sensing research community to advance discovery, enable real-world impacts and foster a shared scientific home for sensing research”.
From simple devices such as the mercury thermometer to super-sensitive instruments such as the laser interferometer LIGO, sensors have a long history. So why does such an established community need convening? The answer lies in the sheer diversity of the sensing technologies that are at the heart of many innovations and scientific discoveries.
The evolution of science and technology over the past century has been, by some measures, a story of division: the splitting of unitary fields into subfields, and the further subdivision of those subfields into even more specialized disciplines. In the case of sensors, we are, in some ways, seeing the opposite.
AI and the rise of intelligent sensing
The ‘home’ discipline for sensors, especially in universities, has conventionally been signal processing, which is a branch of electrical and electronic engineering. But today, sensor research incorporates knowledge and methods from across the biological and chemical sciences, as well as the physical sciences, engineering and technology. Its success depends on productive interdisciplinary working.
... continue reading