Process analytics, agricultural & environmental sensors

Light propagation algorithms and spectroscopy developed for medicine can also be used to determine, for example, the condition of plants, the composition of food, the germ load of water, or the stratification of snow cover (for avalanche warning).

For process analysis, sensors are being developed at the ILM - through complete modeling of the light paths in the measurement volume - with which concentrations of constituents can be determined without the otherwise required tedilous and error-prone calibrations.

Development examples

  • Calibration-free sensors for determining the constituents of liquids,
    e.g. the fat content in milk
  • Online sensor for determining the viability of cells
  • Sensor for determining the optimal harvesting time of apples (the right image shows the measurement of an apple by means of structured illumination, where a pressure spot under the skin (blue spot), which is not visible to the naked eye, could be detected on the basis of the scattering coefficient using a method in the spatially frequency domain).
  • "Snow profiler" for determining the structure of snowpacks
  • Sensor for measuring the water potential of soils
  • Flue gas particle analysis

Contact person

Prof. Dr. Alwin Kienle

Head of Materials Optics & Imaging

Tel: +49 (0)731 / 1429 224

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