Philips twin-eye laser sensor wins prestigious award at this year’s SENSOR+TEST exhibition

Royal Philips Electronics (AEX: PHI, NYSE: PHG) Eindhoven, The Netherlands - Philips Laser Sensors, a business within Philips Lighting BV, and Finisar Corporation (Sunnyvale, USA) have won the prestigious 'SENSOR Innovation Award 2006' at this year's SENSOR+TEST exhibition (Nuremberg, Germany) for Philips' unique twin-eye optical tracking and navigation sensor. Selected from a shortlist of six final-round contenders by a panel of leading scientific and industrial experts, Philips' laser-based twin-eye sensor was chosen on the basis of its innovation, usability and rapid market success. The Sensor Innovation Award, which is sponsored by Germany's AMA Association for Sensor Technology, comes with 5,000 Euro prize money.

"We are absolutely delighted that the technological innovation and advanced engineering built into our twin-eye laser sensor have been recognized by one of Europe's most authoritative organizations in the field of sensors," said Ralph Gudde, Director Marketing & Sales at Philips Laser Sensors.

The twin-eye laser sensor
Philips twin-eye laser technology exploits a phenomenon known as laser self-mixing, in which laser light reflected from the target surface re-enters the illuminating laser where it optically interferes with the emitted laser light. Compared to other optical sensors like LED and CCD based devices, this twin-eye laser sensor achieves greater positional resolution and consumes less power. In addition, it works on virtually all surfaces, achieving positional resolution similar to far more expensive laser Doppler interferometers. Produced as a highly integrated System-in-Package (SiP) solution that incorporates all the required optics, electronics and analog and digital signal processing, the twin-eye laser sensor meets the requirements needed for use in professional test and measurement equipment and consumer products such as computer mice, identification devices, printers and mobile phones.