Intelligent Remote Sensors: from Fields to Information

19世纪的研究证实了磁场是曲线的，而作为波，磁场是沿直线传播的。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，波会“绕过角落”传播。随之而来的是一场研究狂潮，催生了国际无线电科学联盟（URSI）。一个多世纪过去了，生物电磁学等领域的巨大挑战仍然在召唤，URSI和其他研究机构仍在报告进展。随着对场和波的研究导致了无线电通信，电子工程从物理学中脱颖而出，成为一门新的学科，现在它吸收了从数学到材料科学等许多其他学科的知识。在20世纪，通信，然后是信息，也作为变革领域出现，在今天的信息和通信技术中达到顶峰，代表了人类所知道的最具破坏性的创新。本课题研究的是在场和信息之间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”。在实际应用中，由于信号质量对信息的限制，传感是咬紧约束。各种元件感应各种类型的场，特别是用于电磁场的天线和用于声场的扬声器/麦克风。智能遥感器具有多个传感器元件或阵列，使其信号处理能够在增强所需信号及其信息的同时抑制不需要的信号。它的设计需要一些专业的工程技能——概念、数学公式和开发——包括紧凑、宽带元件及其阵列结构的评估。在这些之上，有信号理论和自适应处理，加上传播及其建模的不可分割的作用，包括“转角”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。这些不同的技能是一起需要的，所以传感器设计的创新需要在场和波的散射、元件和阵列、信号处理以及它们之间的相互作用方面的科学基础。评价对工程尤为重要，是研究的一部分。该方法是为广泛的应用程序开发传感器以调用协同作用。在通信方面，这些是用于物联网和卫星雷达监测地球资源；在生物电磁学中，发现并利用电场与微生物之间的相互作用，为无线电消毒剂的发明铺平了道路；在声学方面，新的沉浸式系统用于解释诊断信号。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.