Research activities on sensing, instrumentation, and measurement: New Zealand perspective

The research activities on sensors, instrumentation, and measurement in New Zealand are vibrant and dynamic. This report provides a glimpse of some of the research and development activities happening recently. The report’s basis is the papers presented at workshops of the IEEE IMS New Zealand chapter over the last few years, along with special emphasis on the activities of the Smart Sensing and Intelligent Systems Group (S2IS) of Massey University, New Zealand.

Introduction

New Zealand has a land area of 26771km² and is the home of only 4.7 million people. It has eight tertiary universities and a few crown research institutes. The country is quite vibrant in terms of research and development activities in the area of sensors, instrumentation, and measurements (SIM). Though the emphasis of research and development activities is on agriculture and environment, there are still many other research activities ongoing in the country. Sensors and instrumentation are the core of today's engineering curriculum, because they are strongly cross-disciplinary and hence provide ideal subjects for today's environmentally-aware students, and allow them to receive and contribute up-to-date knowledge of applications, technology, and solutions. There is also a need for interactions among researchers, scientists, engineers, and practitioners to discuss their research findings and activities. These research results became more visible to the wider community after the formation of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society (IMS) New Zealand Chapter in 2010 [1], [2]. The IEEE IMS New Zealand Chapter provides an exciting opportunity for the New Zealand researchers to report SIM related research activities in different technical workshops organized under the chapter.