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Smart lighting solutions based on imaging sensors such as webcams or time-of-flight sensors suffer from rising privacy concerns. In this work, we use low-cost non-imaging color sensors to measure local luminous flux of different colors in an indoor space. These sensors have much higher data acquisition rate and are much cheaper than many o_-the-shelf commercial products. We have developed several applications with these sensors, including illumination feedback control and occupancy-driven lighting.

The significant scientific and technological potential of terahertz (THz) wave sensing and imaging has been attracted considerable attention within many fields of research. However, the development of remote, broadband THz wave sensing technology is lagging behind the compelling needs that exist in the areas of astronomy, global environmental monitoring, and homeland security. This is due to the challenge posed by high absorption of ambient moisture in the THz range. Although various time-domain THz detection techniques have recently been demonstrated, the requirement for an on-site bias or forward collection of the optical signal inevitably prohibits their applications for remote sensing. The objective of this paper is to report updated THz air-plasma technology to meet this great challenge of remote sensing. A focused optical pulse (mJ pulse energy and femtosecond pulse duration) in gas creates a plasma, which can serve to generate intense, broadband, and directional THz waves in the far field.

We report the sensing of explosive materials and illicit drugs by using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) and imaging. Several explosive materials, such as γ-HNIW, RDX, 2,4-DNT, TNT, Nitro-aniline, and illicit drugs, such as methamphetamine (MA) etc were researched here. Non-destructive testing, as one of the major applications of THz imaging, can be applied to an area of critical need: the testing of aerospace materials. Composite materials such as carbon fiber are widely used in this industry. The nature of their use requires technologies that are able to differentiate between safe and unsafe materials, due to either manufacturing tolerance or damage acquired while in use. In this paper, we discuss the applicability of terahertz (THz) imaging systems to this purpose, focusing on graphite fiber composite materials, carbon silicon composite materials and so on. We applied THz imaging technology to evaluate the fire damage to a variety of carbon fiber composite samples. Major carbon fiber materials have polarization-dependent reflectivity in THz frequency range, and we show how the polarization dependence changes versus the burned damage level. Additionally, time domain information acquired through a THz time-domain spectroscopy (TDS) system provides further information with which to characterize the damage. We also detect fuel tank insulation foam panel defects with pulse and continuous-wave (CW) terahertz system.

Failure of a PACS archive server could cripple an entire PACS operation. Last year we demonstrated that it was possible to design a fault-tolerant (FT) server with 99.999% uptime. The FT design was based on a triple modular redundancy with a simple majority vote to automatically detect and mask a faulty module. The purpose of this presentation is to report on its continuous developments in integrating with external mass storage devices, and to delineate laboratory failover experiments. An FT PACS Simulator with generic PACS software has been used in the experiment. To simulate a PACS clinical operation, image examinations are transmitted continuously from the modality simulator to the DICOM gateway and then to the FT PACS server and workstations. The hardware failures in network, FT server module, disk, RAID, and DLT are manually induced to observe the failover recovery of the FT PACS to resume its normal data flow. We then test and evaluate the FT PACS server in its reliability, functionality, and performance.

Basic concepts and preliminary applications in the generation, propagation, and detection of terahertz radiation with femtosecond optics are discussed. Recent progress in ultrafast free-space THz optoelectronics is reviewed.