Tokyo (SCCIJ) – The Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) has honored one of its technologies with its “Inventor Award 2024”. The technology uses light, shadows, and sensing to achieve ultra-precise measurements. It has great potential for various industries and medtech applications.
Eric Grenet (left) and Edoardo Franzi (right) invented the "spaceCoder” technology together with two former CSEM researchers (© CSEM).
Award for “spaceCoder”
Precision measurement is essential for many industries. A team of researchers at CSEM has developed a sensing technology that sets new standards in this field – by using the interplay of light and shadow. Their innovation, called “spaceCoder”, was now recognized with an award from within the company.
Where there is light, there is also shadow – a universal principle that CSEM researchers exploit innovatively. Their technology consists of a system that uses specialized algorithms and an optical sensor that detects light passing through a custom-made shadow mask. When an object is placed in front of the sensor, the system can precisely determine the position of a light source in space based on the shadows it creates.
Nanometric level
This clever method allows for the measurement of illuminated objects with extreme accuracy. “We are operating at a nanometric level here, a scale of one-thousandth of a thousandth of a millimeter,” explains Andrea Dunbar, Business Developer for Data and Artificial Intelligence at CSEM.
The researchers Eric Grenet and Edoardo Franzi were the pioneers of this achievement, as they filed the patent for the underlying technology in 2010. Since then, Grenet and other members of Dunbar’s team have improved and refined spaceCoder’s technology through continuous research and development, making it suitable for practical use.
Versatile applications
The sensor is now almost as small as a sugar cube and offers high precision, reliability, and affordability, as it does not require expensive components like optical lenses. Therefore, shadow-based measurement technology has a huge economic potential, which could reach several billion Swiss Francs. “We have already used the technology for some exciting applications in precision machinery and medtech,” says Andrea Dunbar.
For example, the sensor can measure a patient’s knee accurately before surgery, which is crucial for fitting an artificial knee joint. In the future, the technology could be useful in minimally invasive surgeries, by tracking the 3D position of robot-controlled instruments in real-time. This could enhance surgical precision even further. The technology could also revolutionize the railways, as it can check the track alignment perfectly.
The CSEM is a Swiss research and development center active in the fields of precision manufacturing, digitalization, and renewable energies. It follows a public-private not-for-profit partnership model and develops and transfers technologies considered relevant for the advancement of the Swiss economy.
Text: CSEM (Editing by SCCIJ)
