ABB wins German Innovation Award for temperature sensor design

May 30, 2019 – ABB has received a gold at the German Innovation Awards in the category “Excellence in Business to Business – Electronic Technologies” for its new non-invasive temperature sensor solution.

The award was presented during a gala event held at the Museum of Technology in Berlin, on May 28.

The device is the first temperature sensor of its kind, says the company, providing a non-invasive means of measuring the temperature of an industrial process without sacrificing the accuracy and responsiveness of conventional invasive sensors. ABB says the non-invasive device eliminates the risk of leakage.

Temperature is one of the most critical process parameters to ensure the safety, quality and energy efficiency of industrial plants. ABB’s non-invasive temperature sensor offers a way of measuring without the need to shut down, drill a hole or install a thermowell – a thermometer mounted in a protective shield.

The innovation of the measurement solution lies in the double-sensor design of the measurement probe, combined with a specially developed model-based algorithm estimating the medium temperature. Two sensor elements located close to each other record not just the temperature but also its local spatial distribution and dynamics over a short time scale. This extra information is converted into a process temperature estimate with accuracy and responsiveness.

ABB’s non-invasive temperature sensor was developed jointly by the group’s German Corporate Research Center and its measurement & analytics business.

The German Innovation Awards are organized by the German Design Council, created in 1953 by the German Federal Parliament and endowed by the Federation of German Industries.