According to the techniques herein, one or more sensors coupled to an aligner are used to sense one or more physical qualities of the aligner to determine whether the physical qualities indicate that the aligner material has relaxed and has, e.g., reduced the force systems applied to teeth and/or that the teeth movement for the stage has slowed down. The sensors may provide a signal that represents whether or not the physical qualities fall below a threshold value. A treatment plan may be modified if needed. These techniques have the potential to make treatment plans faster and more effective by speeding up some stages while making sure some, perhaps other, stages are implemented only after the teeth are near the appropriate position.

Provided are a resonator, a method of manufacturing the resonator, and a strain sensor and a sensor array including the resonator. The resonator is provided to extend in a lengthwise direction from a support. The resonator includes a single crystal material and is provided to extend in a crystal orientation that satisfies at least one from among a Young's modulus and a Poisson's ratio, from among crystal orientations of the single crystal material.

It is disclosed a stretchable touchpad (10) of the capacitive type including a stretchable textile fabric (20) having a plurality of conductive elements incorporated therein. The conductive elements are resistive strain gauges (30, 40) which form electrodes to detect a change of capacitance caused by a touch. It is also disclosed a method for operating a stretchable touchpad (10) comprising the steps of measuring continuously a capacitance analog signal provided by a resistive strain gauge (30, 40) of the stretchable touchpad (10); and comparing the measured capacitance signal with a threshold value in order to determine whether or not a touch has taken place, wherein the threshold value is continuously adjusted as a function of the actual measurement of capacitance and as a function of the resistance of said resistive strain gauges (30, 40) which form the capacitor electrodes of said touchpad (10).

Methods and systems suitable for fabricating multi-layer elastic electronic devices, and elastic electronic devices formed thereby. A method of fabricating an elastomer-based electronic device includes printing a first liquid material and then a second liquid material on a fabric substrate that comprises fibers. The first and second liquid materials are sequentially printed with a three-dimensional printer that directly prints the first liquid material onto the fabric substrate so that the first liquid material wicks through some of the fibers of the fabric substrate and forms a solid matrix of an elastomer-based composite that comprises the matrix and the fabric substrate, after which the three-dimensional printer directly prints the second liquid material on the elastomer-based composite to form a film thereon. The elastomer-based composite and film are electrical components of the elastomer-based electronic device.

An apparatus includes a glove for a human hand, and a sensing network coupled to the glove. The sensing network includes a strand of compliant material with a center axis and a multi-region angular displacement sensor connected to the strand. The multi-region angular displacement sensor includes a first angular displacement unit in a first sense region of the stand. The first angular displacement unit is used to determine a first angular displacement in response to deformation of the first angular displacement unit by a first joint of the human hand. The multi-region angular displacement sensor also includes a second angular displacement unit disposed in a second sense region of the strand. The second angular displacement unit is used to determine a second angular displacement in response to deformation of the second angular displacement unit by a second joint of the human hand.

A method includes simultaneously controlling and sensing aerodynamic loading of a membrane wing using a capacitance of the membrane, the membrane wing stretching under aerodynamic load, leading to thinning of a membrane thickness and increased capacitance, and using knowledge of the membrane's elastic and dielectric material properties to determine an amount of steady aerodynamic lift being generated

A sensor unit for detecting bending of the sensor unit comprises: a capacitive upper sensor having an upper capacitance and comprising first and second deformable upper electrodes spaced apart from one another in a Z direction, the first and second upper electrodes respectively having first and second upper shapes; and a capacitive lower sensor having a lower capacitance, spaced apart from the upper sensor in a Z direction and comprising first and second deformable lower electrodes spaced apart from one another in the Z direction, the first and second lower electrodes respectively having first and second lower shapes. For a bend of the sensor unit in a first direction, the first and second upper shapes change such that the upper capacitance decreases and the lower shapes change such that the lower capacitance increases. For a bend of the sensor unit in a second direction opposed to the first direction, the first and second upper shapes change such that the upper capacitance increases and the lower shapes change such that the lower capacitance decreases.

Provided is a method for determining at least one characteristic of a boundary layer a wind turbine rotor blade, including capturing at least one movement of at least one flexible element of at least one sensor being attached to or being part of a surface of the rotor blade, determining the at least one characteristic of the boundary layer based on the at least one captured movement of the at least one flexible element. Further, a sensor device, a wind turbine and a device as well as a computer program product and a computer readable medium are suggested for performing the method.

A monitoring method and system include an antenna disposed spaced from a structural member (SM), which itself can be the target object or attachable to a target object, without using any in-dwelling strain sensor. The antenna is arranged to not touch the SM in at least the no load condition. As the target object undergoes displacement and/or deformation, the SM undergoes displacement and/or deformation. The SM is juxtaposed, partially contained with, or fully contained within a magnetic or electromagnetic field and electromagnetically coupled to the emitting antenna. Characteristics of the electromagnetic field coupling between the antenna and the SM shift over time due to the displacement and/or deformation applied to the SM. The shift in the characteristics of the electromagnetic field coupling between the antenna and the SM over time can be used to determine the temporal change in deformation and/or displacement of the SM over time to enable diagnosis of the target structural object being monitored.

A multibend sensor is able to provide information regarding bending of the sensor data in a manner able to mitigate error propagation. A reference strip and a sliding strip are separated from each other by a spacer. Electrodes are located on the reference strip and the sliding strip. The bending of the multibend sensor will be reflected in the shifting of the sliding strip with respect to the reference strip and the measurements obtained from the electrodes.