Roger Grace, President of Roger Grace Associates, the leading marketing consultancy specialising in sensors and MEMS has organised and will chair a full-day technical symposium on Tuesday, June 26, 2018 at the 33rd Annual Sensors Expo & Conference. The workshop will address Printed, Flexible, Stretchable (P/F/S) and Functional Fabric (FF) Sensors from an Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable applications perspective. Mr. Grace will be joined by 14 other world recognised leaders in the P/F/S and FF sensors and electronics area representing organisations who will present information on topics including currently available sensor products, current research and development activities, application opportunities and barriers to the commercialization of P/F/S and FF sensors and sensor-based systems. Mr. Grace will also make a presentation entitled, “Commercialisation Opportunities for Printed/Flexible/Stretchable and Functional Fabric Sensors and Sensor-Based Systems for IoT (Internet of Things) and Wearables” which will address commercialisation and monetisation issues. The exhibition and technical conference will take place at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California from June 26-28, 2018.
Mr. Grace stated, “This all-day symposium continues to be a key and integral part of my “evangelisation” of Printed, Flexible and Stretchable and most recently Functional Fabric sensors and sensor-based systems. It was developed to help inform and educate the technical, technical management, and business community of the major significance of these technologies and their enabled far-reaching opportunities in IoT and wearable applications from both a current and future perspective. Attendees will be provided with presentations from representatives of leading organisations representing the entire ecosystem of P/F/S and FF sensors, from research and development to manufacturing, who are in the forefront of bringing new and unique P/F/S and FF technologies to the market. Several speakers from leading research and development organisations and universities will address their efforts on device development and integration issues and future application opportunities. My presentation will address the current and future opportunities for P/F/S and FF sensors and the necessary requirements for them to become commercially viable. I will address barriers to the successful commercialisation and strategies resulting in monetisation of P/F/S and FF sensors strategies from perspectives including integration, infrastructure and manufacturing. We expect the attendee to leave the session with a good knowledge of where we have come from, where we are, where we’re going, and what they need to do to help create a more commercially viable P/F/S and FF sensor industry as well as where they can participate in exploiting current and future major application opportunities for P/F/S and FF sensors.” He concluded, “This Sensors Expo 2018 preconference symposium has, to the best of my knowledge, the most highly concentrated and expansive effort to date to exclusively address the topic of P/F/S and FF sensors.”
Mr. Cal Groton, Show Director for the Sensors Expo & Conference said, “As a result of the immense popularity of Roger’s Sensors Expo 2016 and 2017 workshops on a similar topic, we asked him to return and organise another workshop to support our 2018 preconference programme. We decided early on in the creation of the Sensors 2018 Pre-Conference programme to address IoT and wearables because of their current and future importance and far-reaching application in the sensors space. Our decision to bring Roger Grace aboard to develop and chair this workshop was an easy one based on Roger’s well- deserved reputation in the industry as the sensors preeminent marketing consultant “guru “in addition to his long and successful track record of developing over 25 successful technical conference sessions, many here at our event, Sensors Expo. We are truly gratified that Roger’s selection of speakers demonstrates the intent of our exciting conference…that being informing and educating the engineering community as to the importance and enabling nature of sensor technology to meet current and future application opportunities. We are looking forward to very successful technical sessions, exhibit floor participation and especially Roger’s star-studded array of speakers in our pre-conference program”.
The symposium’s morning keynote entitled,” AFFOA: Addressing Commercialization Challenges of Functional Fabric Electronics” will be made by Mr. Eric Spackey, Chief Marketing Officer of the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) organization. The afternoon keynote entitled…” Recent Advances in Wearable Biomonitoring Devices” will be given by Professor Greg Auner of Wayne State University.
ABOUT PRINTED/FLEXIBLE/STRETCHABLE SENSORS
The availability of sensors that can take the shape and work reliably in their imposed complex and demanding working environment has existed for quite some time. Interlink Electronics and Tekscan introduced their flexible sensor product lines in the mid-80’s. With the recent popularity of IoT and wearables, create the need for low-cost single or multiple sensors per system that are small, lightweight and low- power consuming that also can conform to the shape of and survive the environment in which they must operate and are becoming essential. This is especially relevant in the creation of measurement systems which typically rely upon several sensors and their accompanying microcontroller/embedded sensor fusion algorithms that make them “smart” and enable them to address a myriad of IoT applications including environmental/pollution monitoring including air, water, soil and food; fitness; health /eHealth monitoring; agriculture and other applications supporting the “four pillars” of Abundance – the solution being printed/flexible/stretchable sensors and associated electronics and packaging. Recent estimates report the total market for printed/flexible sensors to be $8 billion of the $340 billion flexible electronics market by 2025. With expected unit average sales prices (ASPs) of approximately $0.01 by 2025, this translates into an annual 800-billion-unit volume market and certainly qualifies as a significant constituent of the trillion sensors initiative.
The US DOD has recently awarded major contracts to organizations to move these two important technologies forward. Headed by MIT, the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) Programme received $75 million in funding matched with $242 from many participating organizations in late April, 2016. In August 2015, the FlexTech Alliance received $75 million from DOD with matching grants of $96 million from organizations to create and manage a flexible hybrid electronics facility in San Jose California.
ABOUT ROGER GRACE ASSOCIATES
Roger Grace Associates, founded in 1982, is located in Naples, Florida and provides comprehensive strategic marketing consulting and marketing communications services to domestic and overseas high-technology-based clients, from startups to Fortune 500’s in addition to government agencies. The firm specialises in conducting market research leading to the creation, development and execution of positioning, branding and actionable market strategies for its clients in the successful commercialization of technology for the sensors, MEMS, Nano, semiconductor and semiconductor equipment markets. For more information please visit www.rgrace.com.
ABOUT SENSORS EXPO
Sensors Expo & Conference is the industry’s premier event dedicated to sensors, connectivity, and systems and is widely known as the world’s largest and most important gathering of engineers involved in sensor systems. The conference program is dedicated to exploring the most up-to-date innovations in sensor technology in tracks including energy harvesting and power management, flexible and wearables, IoT and wireless, machine learning and AI, measurement and detection, MEMS, sensor applications, optical sensing and detection, embedded systems design and IIoT, and sensor data. Sensors Expo & Conference identifies cutting-edge trends, explores them in an information-packed conference program and reflects those trends throughout the exhibit floor with new product announcements, application presentations and a showcase of hundreds of products and services.
In its 33rd year, Sensors Expo will take place at the McEnery Convention Center in downtown San Jose from June 26-28, 2018, its expected attendance of over 6,500 will provide the opportunity for attendees to visit close to 350 exhibitors, attend four all-day precon sessions and 65 technical sessions. In addition, this year’s event will also feature two co-located events – Medical Sensors Design Conference and Autonomous Vehicle Sensors Conference. For more information, please visit www.sensorsexpo.com.