Xbeamer using lasers to measure DC to kilohertz-level vibrations
When Igor Zlochin, a scientist in the field of electro-optics and a laser specialist from the Technion--the Israeli institute of technology, sat in his lab in Haifa, while trying to find a way to detect earthquakes, he stumbled on to a brilliant and innovative way to sense vibrations wirelessly from distance in a very accurate and cost effective process. A month later, he met with Hagai Goldovsky and Yossi Forkush, experienced entrepreneurs in the Israeli startup eco-system, and Ronen Dahari, who holds experience in optics, computer vision, and laser systems.
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Founded in the beginning of 2017, Xbeamer (Israel) got its initial funding from the Israeli Innovation authority in order to achieve a proof of concept instrument for tunneling detection and earthquake monitoring, and applied for a patent for the technology. While developing the instrument, the team discovered other potential industries that can benefit from using the technology, such as intelligence organizations, for parameter security, mining, industrial IoT, and medical applications.
Hagai Goldovsky, Xbeam co-founder, says, "Our technology uses a low energy laser beam, reflected from a specially design surface, then monitored by an optical device that sense the behavior of the beam. The data received is then being analyzed by sophisticated algorithms that provide critical insights such as vibrations, movements, de-formation and more."
Today, existing technologies and devices such as seismometers are highly expensive and the hardware requires high maintenance and is very complex. Xbeamer’s technology enables accurate laser measurement of small displacements and vibrations at a precision of a few nanometers in a simple process, yet still highly cost-effective.
Igor Zlochin, Xbeamer chief scientist, adds, "Through our field tests, we were able to prove that our technology specifications are more than impressive. Our technology uses 3-axis displacements & vibrations monitoring, measuring the most sensitive Frequency Range from DC up to 100kHz. Our Displacement & Vibration Amplitude is below 0.002 micron, which enables us to measure and diagnose critical data underground down to 40 meters deep, and above ground by up to 10km."
Xbeamer is currently in their seed-funding round, which will enable the company to fully develop its core technology and complete their breakthrough underground tunneling detection solution. Today, both Israel and the United states are dealing with a threat of underground tunnels, Israel in its border with Gaza and United states in the Mexico border.
SOURCE: Xbeamer; http://www.xbeamer.com
Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)
Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.