Sunday, January 14, 2018

The Rise of Smartphone Spectrometer

MDPI publishes a paper "Smartphone Spectrometers" by Andrew J.S. McGonigle, Thomas C. Wilkes, Tom D. Pering, Jon R. Willmott, Joseph M. Cook, Forrest M. Mims, and Alfio V. Parisi from University of Sheffield, UK and University of Sydney and University of Southern Queensland, Australia.

"Smartphones are playing an increasing role in the sciences, owing to the ubiquitous proliferation of these devices, their relatively low cost, increasing processing power and their suitability for integrated data acquisition and processing in a ‘lab in a phone’ capacity. There is furthermore the potential to deploy these units as nodes within Internet of Things architectures, enabling massive networked data capture. Hitherto, considerable attention has been focused on imaging applications of these devices. However, within just the last few years, another possibility has emerged: to use smartphones as a means of capturing spectra, mostly by coupling various classes of fore-optics to these units with data capture achieved using the smartphone camera. These highly novel approaches have the potential to become widely adopted across a broad range of scientific e.g., biomedical, chemical and agricultural application areas. In this review, we detail the exciting recent development of smartphone spectrometer hardware, in addition to covering applications to which these units have been deployed, hitherto. The paper also points forward to the potentially highly influential impacts that such units could have on the sciences in the coming decades."

7 comments:

  1. I'd bet that in 2 more years, we'll see introduction of spectrometers into smartphones, back-facing, smaller than the rear camera. It would be used by ISPs for color correction when photos and videos are taken, they will also find use in other applications of niche markets thanks to app support and creativity.

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    1. i'd take that bet - I don't think this will happen until there is a widespread application that needs them - that is, an app that helps sell either phones or services. It is not going to be color correction.

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    2. the iPhone-X already has a 6 channels UV - VIS color - NIR light sensor chip (can we called it "Spectrometer"?) from AMS for accurate color correction of the iPhone X display. It was advertized by Apple and teardown reports are available from different companies...

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    3. I'd think that multispectral cameras - if they can be made at low enough price - would be of more interest.

      Being able to do an exact match of a paint should appeal to design-conscious Apple users. I am sure that there are some amusing multi-spectral applications for AR and Pokemon apps (be able to see detail that is invisible to the naked eye)

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  2. New Sony Xperia XZ smartphone already has a dedicated RGB-IR sensor for better camera operation, but I think it's not a true spectrometer though

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  3. Guys, 3-color spectrometer is in every smartphone!

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    1. Well, to be fully correct: 3 "wide bands" centered on RGB colors IMAGING spectrometer is in every smartphone :)

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