sensor

sensor

A device that measures or detects a real-world condition, such as motion, heat or light and converts the condition into an analog or digital representation. An optical sensor detects the intensity or brightness of light, or the intensity of red, green and blue for color systems. See smart sensor, sensor network and mote.

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sensor

anything, such as a photoelectric cell, that receives a signal or stimulus and responds to it

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sensor [′sen·sər]

(engineering)

The generic name for a device that senses either the absolute value or a change in a physical quantity such as temperature, pressure, flow rate, or pH, or the intensity of light, sound, or radio waves and converts that change into a useful input signal for an information-gathering system; a television camera is therefore a sensor, and a transducer is a special type of sensor. Also known as primary detector; sensing element.

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(hardware)

sensor - An electronic device used to measure a physical quantity such as temperature, pressure or loudness and convert it into an electronic signal of some kind (e.g a voltage). Sensors are normally components of some larger electronic system such as a computer control and/or measurement system. Analog sensors most often produce a voltage proportional to the measured quantity. The signal must be converted to digital form with a ADC before the CPU can process it. Digital sensors most often use serial communication such as EIA-232 to return information directly to the controller or computer through a serial port.