The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation included the technology in its latest roundup of “top licensing prospects” in engineering and computer sciences. The group’s overview notes the laser can be easily mounted to commercial 3D printers or laser welding machines to provide information on temperature, pressure, composition and other variables.
Along with machine learning-based information processing, the sensor can be used for quality control processes by manufacturers, which “reduces the need for destructive or expensive non-destructive testing” of the product, authors wrote.
The sensor was created by Profs. Scott Sanders and Lianyi Chen from the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.
See WARF’s overview and the patent application.