Intelligent Remote Sensors: from Fields to Information

19世纪的研究证实，场是曲线的，像波一样，沿着直线传播。然后，卢瑟福在新西兰的实验和马可尼在加拿大和英国之间的演示表明，海浪在“角落”传播。随后在传播上掀起了一场研究狂潮，催生了《国际无线电科学联盟》(URSI)。一个多世纪过去了，生物电磁学等领域和波领域的重大挑战仍然在召唤着我们，URSI和其他研究机构仍在报道进展。就像对场和波的研究导致了无线电通信一样，电气工程是从物理学中脱颖而出的一门新学科，现在它利用了从数学到材料科学的许多其他学科。在20世纪，通信，然后是信息，也成为变革性的领域，最终形成了今天的信息和通信技术，代表了人类已知的最具颠覆性的创新。本课题研究的是场与信息相互转换的传感器的设计。传感元件在场和信号之间映射；它的信号处理映射信号和信息，通常被称为“智能”。在实践中，感知是一个尖锐的限制，因为信号质量限制了信息。各种元件感知各种类型的场，特别是用于电磁场的天线和用于声场的扬声器/麦克风。智能远程传感器具有多个传感器元件或阵列，使其信号处理能够抑制不想要的信号，同时增强想要的信号及其信息。它的设计需要几个专业的工程技能--构思、数学公式和开发--包括对紧凑、宽带元件及其阵列结构的评估。除此之外，还有信号理论和自适应处理，以及传播和建模密不可分的作用，包括“转危为安”的机制：为了最好地映射信息，传感器必须适应不断变化的条件，特别是传播。这些不同的技能需要结合在一起，因此传感器设计的创新需要在场和波的散射、元素和阵列、信号处理以及它们之间的相互作用方面的科学基础。评估对工程特别重要，是研究的一部分。其方法是为一系列广泛的应用开发传感器，以调用协同。在通信方面，它们用于物联网和卫星雷达监测地球资源；在生物电磁学方面，用于发现和利用场地和微生物之间的相互作用，为无线电消毒剂铺平道路；在声学方面，用于解释诊断信号的新沉浸式系统。其结果将是新的设计基础和发明、世界级的传感器和世界级的工程师，最终为新的经济财富做出贡献。

Nineteenth century research established that fields are curvilinear, and as waves, travel in straight lines. Then Rutherford's experiments in New Zealand and Marconi's demonstration between Canada and Britain showed that waves travelled "around corners". A research frenzy ensued on propagation, spawning the Union Radio Scientifique Internationale (URSI). Over a century later, grand challenges still beckon in fields and waves, such as bioelectromagnetics, with progress still reported through URSI and other research organizations.  As the study of fields and waves led to radio communications, electrical engineering emerged from physics as a new discipline, and it now draws on many other disciplines from mathematics to materials science. In the twentieth century, Communications, and then Information, emerged also as transformative areas, culminating in today's Information and Communications Technology representing the most disruptive innovations that mankind has known. This research is on the design of sensors which transform between fields and information. The sensing element maps between fields and signals; and its signal processing maps signals and information, often called "intelligence". In practice, the sensing is the biting constraint because the signal quality limits the information. Various elements sense the various types of fields, in particular antennas for electromagnetic fields and loudspeakers/microphones for acoustic fields. An intelligent remote sensor has multiple sensor elements, or an array, enabling its signal processing to suppress unwanted signals while boosting the wanted signal and its information. Its design calls for several specialist engineering skills - conception, mathematical formulation, and development - including the evaluation of compact, wide-band elements and their array structures. On top of these, there is the signal theory and adaptive processing, plus the inseparable role of the propagation and its modelling, including "around the corner" mechanisms: to best map the information, the sensor must adapt to changing conditions, particularly the propagation. These diverse skills are required together, so innovation in sensor design calls on scientific foundations in the scattering of fields and waves, elements and arrays, signal processing, and the interplay between these. Evaluation is particularly important for engineering and is part of the research. The methodology is to develop sensors for a wide set of applications to invoke synergy. In communications, these are for the Internet-of-Things and satellite radar monitoring of earth resources; in bioelectromagnetics, discovering and using interactions between fields and micro-organisms, paving the way to radio disinfectants; and in acoustics, new immersive systems for interpreting diagnostic signals. The outcomes will be new design foundations and inventions, world class sensors and world class engineers, ultimately contributing to new economic wealth.