ElastiSense specializes in a unique All-Rubber sensor technology enabling monitoring and downtime reduction even in the most aggressive applications within Factory Automation, Structural Health Monitoring and Off-Road machinery.
Since its establishment in 2016, the ElastiSense team has cooperated with companies of all sizes and within many different industrial segments. They have proven, on many occasions, that their sensing technology, can add significant value to companies with effective monitoring, predictive maintenance, and downtime elimination of their assets.
At ElastiSense, they leverage from their 30 years’ industrial experience with the core technology, to engineer the solutions for the specific needs of our customers.
Along with relevant academic backgrounds, the company possesses all the necessary engineering expertise: mechanics, electronics, software, modelling, experimentation, and process design, to offer innovative sensor solutions customized specific to customers’ needs.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
ELASTISENSE: At ElastiSense we are dedicated to delivering displacement and position sensors for industrial applications. We have developed our sensors with Industrial IoT and Industry 4.0 compliance in mind to enable our customers to monitor their processes and benefit from these digital trends.
We have primarily worked with factory automation, off-road machinery, and structural health monitoring up until now, but the potential for our unique sensors has virtually no limits.
E.E: What’s the news for 2021 about new products?
ELASTISENSE: Newest addition to ElastiSense product portfolio is the DS-Series displacement sensors which was introduced to market in March 2020 and have already received market enquiries and orders from customers.
Thanks to the unique design of the DS-Series sensors they can monitor applications where alternative solutions fail. What makes them truly unique, is their solid-state characteristics in combination with an extremely strong and durable high-grade silicon rubber encapsulation. The sensing element inside is an equally unique hyper-elastic high-strain rubber strain-gauge capable of 100% strain enabling the use of the sensor for accurate position and displacement measurement even in the presence of misalignment. The sensor is built to hold, and the high-grade silicon rubber encapsulation makes sure that it even tolerates harsh environments, both in tough indoor industrial processes and in outdoor applications operating in all kinds of weather and exposed to mud, sand, dirt, dust, water, extreme heat or cold or even saltwater in offshore applications. To make the product complete, we have integrated the electronics, to make them just as weather- and environment proof as the rest of the sensor.
The sole purpose of DS-Series displacement sensors is to help our customers ensure condition monitoring and predictive maintenance of their application. That will help avoid unexpected and expensive downtime and provide damage prevention. This will ultimately help our customers increase their efficiency and improve the quality of their products.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
ELASTISENSE: We are specialised in the development and production of displacement and position sensors and can provide our customers with a wide range of sensors in that category, both off the shelf products and customized products based on specific customer demand. Apart from our DS-Series range for different industrial applications, we also have in our portfolio, the EDS Displacement Sensor Series, developed especially for manufacturing process monitoring. Finally, we have in our assortment, a monitoring system with multiple daisy-chained sensors and a controller to handle communication and data processing as well as a portable test kit, designed to enable easy, yet precise displacement measurements of a system or tool, with up to two sensors allowing system characterization and monitoring.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
ELASTISENSE: We are operating in many different markets right now, not defined by borders, but defined by business areas and applications. These markets are in very different stages, some being more conservative and skeptical towards new technology, some being very openminded and willing to try something new. In general, we see customers reaching the limit for what current sensor technology can do for them, making them far more open to new technology capable of delivering the data about their applications they need, even in rough environments.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
ELASTISENSE: Common for all the markets we operate in, is a turning towards digitalisation, Industrial IOT and Industry 4.0. We see a need for being able to make applications far more effective and with as little human interaction as possible. Digitalisation inevitably requires sensors for condition monitoring, and this is where we come in. Especially in applications operating in harsh environments, the need for durable sensors is evident. This is where non-contact sensors and cylinder-based sensors fail, and where there, up until now, has not been a real alternative. For structural health monitoring, there are new rules and regulations in many countries, requiring constant monitoring of the structural health in bridges and public buildings to increase safety for the public. The challenge with this, is that the sensors doing the monitoring, inevitably will be exposed to hard weather, especially in bridges.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
ELASTISENSE: The DS-Series sensors are the most innovative products from us and are the culmination of many years of research and development within displacement and position sensor technology. The stretch sensor itself is a unique ElastiSense product, and the high-grade silicon rubber encapsulation is an innovative (and patented) solution never seen before. The series has been developed with Industrial IOT and Industry 4.0 trends in mind and are therefore ready to take industrial applications to a new level of digitalisation.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2021?
ELASTISENSE: We estimate that 2021 will be the year of digitalisation across industries. The market trends in general and the COVID-19 situation on top, is pushing this development forward very fast right now. The demand for products and solutions capable of taking companies to a new level of digitalisation will increase drastically, which will also affect our business. We already see a big demand and a lot of interest in our products and expertise. The DS-Series is in especially high demand, due to the price competitiveness, and the fast and easy integration into customer applications. This is yet another area where it really distinguishes itself from competing technology.
Apart from being able to help even more customers optimising their businesses, we also expect to learn a lot more about current and new markets, helping us develop the next generation displacement and position sensor.