According to Dr David Pooley, senior consultant at TTP, this patent-pending inductive technique has already been used over temperature ranges of several hundred degrees Celsius with an accuracy of 1°C.
The new technique – based on a principle commonly used in proximity sensors and non-destructive testing – provides a completely new approach and could, he says, replace existing contact methods involving, for thermocouples, RTDs and the use of infrared.
"Inductive temperature sensing is ideal for applications where contact methods are not reliable or where lack of line-of-sight access, variable emissivity or high cost limit the use of infrared techniques," states Pooley.
"And because of the simplicity of applying the technology in practical environments, it could also be used in low-cost consumer applications."
Eddy currents were discovered by French physicist Leon Foucault in 1851, following the understanding of electromagnetic induction by Michael Faraday in 1831."