Market study for Multi-channel Optical Dew & Humidity Sensor (MODHS)

湿度和露水监测对于各种应用是非常关键的。根据Frost and Sullivanmarket 2017年的报告(参见[3])，“到2023年，全球湿度和湿度传感器的市场规模预计将达到19亿美元。”目前的技术主要是电学技术，如CMOS、MEMS、TFPT，以及最近基于非接触式IR和RF的技术。目前的电学或光学湿度传感器在成本和技术方面存在问题，无法为大量小气候系统(不同地点)的同时检测提供经济的环境控制服务。对于电子湿度传感器，高质量的探头相当昂贵(200-300美元/个)。当环境相对湿度(RH)迅速变化时，例如在各种制造过程中，它们的速度不足以准确跟踪环境相对湿度(RH)，并且考虑到它们对探头数量和与控制单元的距离的限制。对于光学技术，他们的湿度探测器也很复杂，经常使用昂贵的检测系统，如光谱仪或干涉仪。与目前基于光子的方法相比，我们的MHODS技术提供了一个经济高效的解决方案。我们使用光子技术实现这一点，通过使用多根光纤，每根光纤都有一个表面等离子体共振(SPR)传感器。使用SPR探头和表面的蒸汽冷凝，我们发现了一种新的方法来精确检测湿度，因此我们的传感器不需要吸湿层，这与以前介绍的方法形成了对比。MODHS可以为难以进入的地点的一套小气候系统、具有危险物质的工业、博物馆、档案室、图书馆、实验室等提供湿度和露点监测服务。此外，它还使我们能够使用简单的光导电池或光电二极管进行检测，而不是使用昂贵的光谱仪。这就是为什么我们的光子传感平台与其他技术相比将是廉价的，并且易于商业化，从而证明拟议的市场研究是合理的。

Humidity and dew monitoring is very critical for various application. According to a 2017 Frost and Sullivanmarket report (see ref. [3]) of proposal), "the global humidity and moisture sensors market size is expected tohit USD 1.90 billion by 2023." Current technologies are mostly electrical ones such as CMOS, MEMS, TFPT,and recently noncontact IR and RF-based technologies.The current electrical or optical humidity sensors have issues in terms of costs and technologies to providean economic environmental control service for detecting simultaneously in a large number of microclimatesystems (various locations). For the electrical humidity sensors, high-quality probes are rather expensive(200-300$/each). They are not fast enough to accurately track the ambient relative humidity (RH) when itrapidly changes, such as in various manufacturing processes, as well as considering their limitation for thenumber of the probes and distance from the control unit. For the optical technologies, their humidity probes arealso complicated, and often used an expensive detection system such as a spectrometer or interferometer.Our MHODS technology offers a cost-effective solution in comparison with current photonic basedapproaches. We realize this using a photonic technology, through the use of multiple optical fibers with eachhaving a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor. Using the SPR probe and vapor condensation on a surface,we discovered a novel method to precisely sense moisture so that our transducer needs no moisture absorbentlayer, in contrast to previously introduced approaches. The MODHS can provide humidity and dew pointmonitoring service for a suite of microclimate systems in hard- to- access locations, industrials with hazardouschemicals, museums, archive rooms, libraries, laboratories, and etc.Also it enables us to use simple photoconductive cells or photodiodes for detection, instead to use expensivespectrometers. This is the reason why our photonic sensing platform will be inexpensive compared to othertechnologies, and easy to commercialize thus justifying the proposed market study.