Category Archives: Lasers in the News

Lasers Vs Insects: Creating the Photonic Fence

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Controlling disease-carrying insects is a worldwide issue for agricultural, food, and health industries. Insufficient pest control can ruin an entire season’s crops, or even help spread harmful diseases to consumers. The common method for maintaining control of food resources is through the use of pesticides. While these chemicals are mostly effective in warding off troublesome insects, some species have become resistant to certain compositions, leading to stronger pesticides. While incrementally more effective, the chemicals used to develop the stronger pesticides are not the best substances for safe human consumption.

As researchers have tried to find a new way to control potential infestations or the spread of disease, a Washington-based team may have found a novel solution to growing pest control concerns: lasers.

While the idea of shooting down pesky bugs with a laser beam may seem comical, the concept developed by Intellectual Ventures Laboratory seems like a viable solution to the inevitable question: What happens when pesticides are no longer a sufficient, or health-conscious option?

Enter the Photonic Fence: An electro-optical system that uses lasers, detectors, and data to identify, detect, and shoot down insects before they reach the protected region. While not a particularly new idea, (concepts for a “mosquito fence” have been in the works since the 1980’s) we are closer to a functional prototype than ever before.

The photonic fence determines the size, flight pattern, shape, and frequency of an insect’s wing flap to distinguish species from one another. Based on the data collected, the device is able to determine if the insect is a health threat or not, only firing on those who pose a known danger to the protected region. The photonic fence will also be able to determine if any non-threatening lifeforms are at risk of being caught in the crossfire. This distinction helps to avoid any ecological disruption outside of eliminating the hazardous threat.  If the range is obstructed by other insects or lifeforms the device will not fire. The entire process takes nearly a second to occur. While the utilized lasers are low in power, when fired at something as small as a mosquito, the tool is effective in eradicating threats, but causing little to no damage elsewhere.

The goal is to use the photonic fence to protect areas critically affected by disease spreading pests. The fence, once made available, gives a powerful, yet safe alternative to chemical pesticides. Beyond public health applications, the tool could prove to be revolutionary for organic farms and beyond.

If the developing prototypes prove functional and effective, a widespread utilization of the photonic fence will have a huge secondary benefit: data collection. By building an unprecedented database of insect data, the tracking of hazardous pests in crucial areas will be easier than ever before. It goes without saying that the intent is not to eliminate entire species of insects, but rather to curve the devastating impact lost crops and deadly diseases can have on impoverished and threatened communities. To put it simply, this is not your everyday bug swatter.

One of the most significant criticisms of the photonic fence is the lack of reliable energy in Africa, where the photonic fence is needed most. Cost is also a concern of skeptics and critics, who have followed the idea of the “mosquito fence” for decades. To combat this, Intellectual Ventures is working to develop the most affordable, energy efficient way to create and develop the photonic fence to better suit it for where the need and demand exists. The technology is not too different from the standard Blu-Ray player, which does not necessitate a large surge of energy to power up.

Bringing laser technology to the worlds of agriculture and disease prevention is an exciting development for new, exciting laser applications. Using lasers to help provide the world healthier foods, better disease control, and a previously unparalleled understanding of our ecosystems could mean big, positive changes for the world at large. At the very least, with the right operation, the photonic fence could very realistically reveal new information about the world around us, and how we can make it better.

 

Author’s Note: The original post contained an inaccuracy in regards to the cost of development for the photonic fence. This has since been removed. Apologies for any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused.

 

 

 

Fibre Lasers Continue to Gain Marketing Shares

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A new report from Optech Consulting revealed that the market share of fibre lasers is on the rise. Up almost ten percent from 2014, fibre lasers are currently occupying 37 percent of the global laser market in the realm of materials processing.

The laser market alone saw significant growth in the last year, growing to a $3.2 billion dollar market. The growth of fibre lasers is of particular interest. Just over a decade ago, fibre lasers held only four percent of the industry’s market share.

This may be, in part, due to the push to replace gas lasers with fibre lasers. While fibre lasers do serve as a hardy replacement for high power  CO² lasers, they are not as capable when it comes to low powered CO² lasers. There is significant interest in the application of fibre lasers in the ever-growing realm of additive manufacturing. This could potentially be a driving force for greater market shares, in the next handful of years.

For more information on the financial report, please check out the original story from Laser Systems Europe here.

New OSHA regulations – going into effect August 10

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New OSHA regulations, going into effect August 10, are sending a ripple of controversy throughout manufacturing, construction, and other hazardous industries. The new law requires that companies that operate in hazardous industries, with a staff of fewer than 250, file OSHA form 300A in the event of work-related injury or illness. Those with more employees will file 300, 300A, and 301.The new regulations require companies to file electronically with OSHA. Previously, these forms and reports were kept on hand by an employer, and only received by OSHA in the event of an investigation. Under the new law, not only will OSHA receive all reports, the reports will also be available to the public, online.

The transparency of the inner workings of these companies could positively impact the industries by highlighting areas of concern, leading to better work environments for employees. On the flip side, the public accessibility of the information could open the doors to unfavorable press and lawsuits.

Workers in hazardous industries are divided by the new rules. Those in favor of the changes suggest that OSHA’s accessibility to those records can help the administration better target their investigations. Believing that regularly occurring accidents may be symbolic of poor management or other company shortcomings, there is significant hope that the rules will inevitably lead to safer, well-operated workplaces.

Those who oppose the changes feel that the new rules “shame” those in hazardous industries. While few would argue against a push for greater transparency, it is the method and lack of employee and company privacy, that has many concerned. Others raise concerns about the ability to revise reports, after investigation. If the initial information is shared to the public, but is later revised for accuracy, it is easy for the information to be misinterpreted by anyone who comes across the report.

Although the law goes into effect this summer, the record keeping will change over beginning January 1, 2017. The mandatory submission of reports will begin July 2017. The records will be available online shortly after OSHA receives them.

You can get the forms here: https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/RKforms.html

The Invention of the Bar Code Scanner

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Supermarkets and warehouses across the globe are participating in the ever-growing game of bar code scanning. Bar codes are used more often than not and for most items that you typically surround yourself with. Any item that is bought within a major grocery store, online, or go through warehouse processing will undergo some sort of scanning process in order to keep managers and those in charge informed of either an increase or decrease in a given numerical value associated with inventory.

A bar code, or universal product code (UPC), is a quick and efficient way of entering numerical data into a computer. These codes are used in both supermarkets and warehouses alike and provide a less than stressful process when counting and keeping track of various inventory classifications. If you’re an avid shopper or at least familiar with the labels affixed to a given item then you are aware of the strange appearance bar codes share. On the surface, these hidden codes appear to be nothing but vertical white and black lines. However, when analyzing these intricate codes from a closer level we are able to understand exactly how they function.

To further explain, these vertical lines, or codes, represent specific bits of information that is then scanned by a laser before being transmitted and interpreted by a computer. The black vertical lines of a given bar code do not reflect laser light very well therefore each line is read as a one, 1, by a computer system while the white vertical lines reflect laser light extremely well and are read as a zero, 0. Each section of a bar code is further divided into seven vertical modules that consist of individual bars and spaces. Each group of these seven bars and spaces is then interpreted by a computer as being one single number. As an example, the number one is represented as “0 0 1 1 0 0 1” or “space, space, bar, bar, space, space, bar”. Collectively, the numbers on the right hand side of the bar code are the optical opposites of those on the left hand side. For example, the opposite of the number “1” (which was “0 0 1 1 0 0 1” or “space, space, bar, bar, space, space, bar”) is recognized as “bar, bar, space, space, bar, bar, space” or “1 1 0 0 1 1 0”.

A single bar code represents a twelve digit number. These numbers represent many things such as: the product type (first digit), the manufacturer code (the next five digits that make up the left half of the set of digits), product code (the following five digits that make up the right half of the set of digits), and the check digit (the very last number). This number is often located directly below the bar code of any given store-bought item and is often shown numerically as a precaution in case the vertical bar code were to become unreadable. This coding is necessary in order to make sure that the wrong information isn’t being translated into the computer system thus labeling a specific item as another.

Taking a step back in history allows us to analyze the bar code scanner and determine how exactly it came to be. It was in 1932 when a business student named Wallace Flint first proposed a system which advocated the use of punch cards in order to enable shoppers to get “checked out” in a more timely manner. Flint suggested the use of punch cards by store grocers in order to deal with the influx of customers that dominated heavily populated regions around the world. The concept of using punch cards was first developed in 1890 and had been initially used for the U.S. census as a way to keep track of United States citizens. Flint believed that this system could be used in order to give store management a well-kept record of what was being bought, however there were a few problems with this method. The equipment needed for card-reading was equally both bulky and expensive so nothing came out of this initial proposal. However, Flint’s consumer concerns would later pave the way for modern scanning technology.

The first step towards creating the bar code took place in 1948 when a graduate student named Barnard Silver overheard a conversation in the halls of Philadelphia’s Drexel Institute of Technology. The conversation happened between the president of a food chain and one of the school deans. The president was concerned about store checkout speeds and wanted to conduct research on a system which would capture specific product information ‘automatically’. The president’s request was denied by the dean however this didn’t stop Silver from mentioning what he overheard to one of his friends, Norman Joseph Woodland. Having no idea of the influence he would later have on these scanning devices, Woodland then became interested in the concept and immediately took to the books.

Woodland’s first idea was to use pink patterns that would glow under ultraviolet light. To complete this task, Silver and Woodland joined forces to build a device that would be used to test this ultraviolet concept. In the end, the project was extremely successful however the men experienced a few problems such as ink instability and financial concerns which were associated with the costs of pattern-printing. After dedicating several months to hard-work and sleepless nights, Woodland finally came up with the linear bar code. This linear code was created through Woodland’s meshing of two previously established technologies: the sound system and Morse code.

This linear bar code made use out of the Lee de Forest’s sound system from the early 1920’s. Lee de Forest was an American inventor and Electrical Engineer who has since been credited with developing the Audion, an audio vacuum-tube device that helped AT&T establish coast-to-coast signals and one that is still used in modern televisions, radios, and other sound systems. Soon after Woodland began putting together a patent application at Drexel, Silver investigated what form the new codes should take. On October 20, 1949, Woodland and Silver filed their official patent application.

In 1951, Woodland landed a job with International Business Machines (IBM) and set out with his partner, Silver, the following year in order to begin building the first bar code reader. This initial device had been the size of a desk and needed to be wrapped in dark oilcloth in order to keep out excess light. This device relied on two key components: a five-hundred-watt incandescent bulb as its light source and an RCA 935 photo-multiplier tube, a device used for the light detection of very weak signals that was initially designed for movie sound systems, as the reader. A year later, in October 1952, the patent of Woodland and Silver had been granted. After a failed attempt at trying to persuade IBM to hire a consultant to evaluate bar codes, the pair’s patent had been on the verge of expiration. However, IBM did attempt to buy the patent but to no avail. PHILCO, an electronics company, bought the patent in 1962 and then later sold it to RCA in 1971. Since then, the bar code scanner has undergone various changes within its own evolution.

One of the later interpretations of the bar code scanner included a system created by David J. Collins. Being a graduate from MIT, Collins had a knack for implementing new strategies in order to accomplish tricky tasks. Collins came up with a strategic system that assisted railroad companies through the automatic tracking of freight cars. Each car was designated a four-digit number that served to identify the railroad which owned it and an additional six-digit number whose purpose was to identify a specific car.

Through rigorous years of failed attempts and disregarded concepts a breakthrough had finally been made. On June 26, 1974, a supermarket in Troy, Ohio sold a pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum which was the first item to have ever been scanned by a bar code scanner. After this historical moment the use of scanners slowly started to climb. It wasn’t until the late 1970s when sales of these systems started to flourish. The invention of the bar code scanner has since made things much more convenient for the average shopping consumer. There is no longer a need for cashiers and store clerks to manually record transactions. Even though wait lines still take quite a bit of time to get through they aren’t as bad as they have been in the past.

Today, small businesses are able to thrive by keeping lists of their inventory. Meanwhile, larger stores require more extensive lists that are highly ordered and organized in order to keep count of brands and “stock keeping units” or SKUs. These stores and major companies are the ones that find comfort and daily use in bar codes and scanners and keep the technology alive and thriving. When a store manager or owner needs to acquire information on a certain product, all they have to do is scan its bar code.

We know where bar codes have brought us but we have yet to comprehend where exactly it will lead us. The future of bar codes may even include DNA bar coding. The International Bar code of Life (IBL) is a project that is currently underway and one that aims to compile a catalog of all species that inhabit the Earth. As of late, researchers have already begun using bar codes to scan mating habits of insects. This only further proves that new inventions and technologies are forever enhancing and expanding both convenience and experience.

Throwback Thursday: Projecting Lasers Onto The Moon

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Out of context, “shooting lasers at the moon” sounds closer to the nefarious plot of a Saturday morning cartoon villain than a milestone in the history of lasers. The process is known as lunar laser ranging, which is the process of using lasers to measure the distance between the earth and the moon.

In May of 1962, a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were the first to successfully project the beam onto the surface of the moon, and have it reflect back. The beam was directed at Albategnius, a long-identified, larger-sized crater on the moon’s surface.

As part of the Apollo missions, reflectors were placed into the moon to assist in future measurements and tests. Since lasers were first used for lunar ranging, researchers have learned a great deal about the interactions between the Earth and the moon. Thanks to lunar laser ranging, we have learned that the moon is moving away from the Earth at a much greater rate than once imagined. (Approximately 3.8 centimeters per year.)

Despite these findings, researchers have determined that the gravitational pull between the two bodies is, in fact, stable, staying within the constraint of Newton’s gravitational constant. No one needs to worry about a disruption of the tides or variations in the Earth’s rotation any time soon.

Lunar laser ranging also confirmed that Einstein’s general theory of relativity can be used to predict the moon’s orbit almost as accurately as the lasers can. In a way, both methods prove that the other is within the same realm of accuracy.

The next step for researchers is to increase the accuracy of lunar laser ranging to the exact millimeter. However, these developments are slowed by the degradation of the reflectors. The laser pulses aimed toward the lunar surface are returning at a fractional rate to what was once standard. Some speculate that the beams are being interfered with by a coat of lunar dust over the reflectors.  It is unknown at this time if there are any future plans to fix reflectors, and push the limits of known Earth-to-moon measurements.