INTRODUCTION
STUDY GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
BCC Research’s goal in conducting this study is to explore advanced materials as they currently impact or are anticipated to impact advanced sensor technologies and markets. Since advanced materials are constantly evolving and improving, current markets cannot fully anticipate the impact that advanced materials will have on future markets. It is, therefore, imperative to consider advanced materials within the context of the current advanced materials, sensors, and sensor applications markets, as well as forecasting and projecting the real market impact that such materials are anticipated to have in the future.
By considering advanced materials within the context of many different advanced sensor categories, and also within their eventual sensor applications, advanced material and advanced sensor professionals can consider the entire landscape of current and developing technologies in order to make better strategic and market-based business decisions.
REASONS FOR DOING THE STUDY
As with any highly technical field, advanced materials tend to be pursued in completely separate academic and research settings, sometimes paired with a known business purpose or outcome and sometimes approached with a purely scientific or theoretical goal in mind. Because of this tendency toward technological isolation, it is imperative to be able to put advanced materials into the current or future sensor and sensor applications contexts as they impact the eventual market segments.
Market and revenue forecasts based on statistical estimation can be used by professionals from either the theoretical or applied technology fields to gain a better understanding of how their own business solutions or business needs fit into the advanced materials and sensors landscape.
INTENDED AUDIENCE
BCC has compiled a study of advanced materials, advanced sensors and advanced sensor applications definitions, market segmentations, market drivers and inhibitors, and current and emerging technology innovations. New materials can significantly alter the market landscape for one or more sensor technologies and sensor applications by incrementally improving the technology, creating an entirely new alternative approach, or even bypassing conventional technological approaches because the new material propels the technology discontinuously forward without requiring known intermediary steps.
Frequently, the very experts creating advanced material and sensor technology innovations are not professionally or experientially in a position to fully leverage their own technology. Increasingly, academic and research organizations are pairing with business professionals and commercial organizations in order to maximize the commercialization of their technology. This study will provide the commercial and market information necessary for technical experts and will provide the technical understanding necessary for business and investment experts interested in the field. Additionally, significant research and commercial organizations will be identified according to their actual technology and intellectual property innovations to date.
This study is intended to connect and synthesize the complex and dynamic advanced materials and sensor technologies with the evolution and growth of the resultant markets. Business professionals will benefit by being able to more strategically identify market growth patterns and the technologies and products that are being created to meet particular market needs. Technology professionals will be able to understand more fully the commercial markets into which their technologies and products will eventually emerge.
SCOPE OF REPORT
The scope of this study encompasses several identified categories of advanced materials, functional categories of advanced sensors, and several logically grouped categories of sensor applications. Within each of these three technology categorization groupings, the history of each category; the evolution of the technology, including the identification of technology innovators within the category; and the route to commercialization for each identified technology and application category are explored.
This study identifies and analyzes current and anticipated future markets for each of the identified market categories, beginning from the underlying advanced materials, discussing and describing the usage of these materials in their respective advanced sensor technologies, and, finally, describing and analyzing how these sensor products are used in the context of several different applications, including vehicular sensing; aerospace and aviation sensing; civil engineering sensing; security, law enforcement, and defense related sensing; navigation sensing; medical sensing, and several others.
BCC analyzes the industry on a worldwide basis, both from a market and application perspective and a technology perspective. Advanced materials are technologically diverse and subject to a wide variety of consumer safety, environmental, and other regulations, depending on manufacturing and development details and intended usage factors. Many of the legal and regulatory factors that must be considered for each of the different market and technology categories, as they are pursued and deployed throughout the world, are presented.
BCC also presents an analysis across the entire advanced materials and advanced sensor industry based on reported revenue dollars and units shipped as reported to the SEC and/or other governmental agencies. Data gathered from various research sources via the Internet—including large databases such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) databases of U.S. Patents and Patent Applications, Micropatent’s searchable databases for U.S. and international patents, and other IP (intellectual property) issues, and the searchable database available on the Internet from the European Patent Office for World and U.S. patents and patent applications—are also analyzed.
Several of the advanced materials technologies that are described and analyzed are not presented with current and anticipated market impact. One reason for this is that the technologies themselves are still firmly entrenched in theoretical and research efforts without evident eminent commercialization. Another reason for a lack of granularly categorized market presence for a particular technology category is that some technologies are pursued exclusively by proprietary technology of some commercial or industrial entity, such as very specific vehicular occupancy sensors created by one particular automobile manufacturer that will never be offered to the market as a separate product but rather as a feature or enhancement for an existing product, namely, a “smarter” automobile safety system.
INFORMATION SOURCES
BCC analyzed public documents, SEC filings, corporate white papers, and other technical documentation for 175 U.S. and international companies directly involved in manufacturing, distributing, or integrating advanced materials as related to sensing technology products or applications.
Additionally, BCC analyzed greater than 2,300 utility patents filed in the U.S. and throughout the world on advanced materials, advanced sensors, and sensor related application inventions.
ANALYST’S CREDENTIALS
Jordan Sheridan is a technology analyst and writer with more than 20 years of experience who has specialized in technology and intellectual property strategies and has developed IP documentation and analysis studies for Fortune 100 companies, with particular emphasis on IT technology and algorithmically-based inventions. Sheridan’s publications for BCC Research include RFID: Technology, Applications, and Market Potential (IAS020A); The Global Market for Energy Management Information Systems (EGY052A); Technologies for Air Pollution Monitoring, Prevention, & Control (IAS001G); and Artificial Sensing: Technologies and Emerging Markets (IAS021A).
BCC ONLINE SERVICES
BCC offers an online information retrieval service. BCC’s home page, located at www.bccresearch.com, enables readers to:
- Examine BCC’s complete catalog of Market Research Reports and place direct orders
- Subscribe to any of BCC’s many industry newsletters
- Read announcements of recently published reports and newly launched newsletters
- Register for BCC’s well-known conferences
- Request additional information on any BCC product
- Take advantage of special offers
DISCLAIMER
The information developed in this report, is intended to be as reliable as possible at the time of publication and is of a professional nature. This information does not constitute managerial, legal, or accounting advice; nor should it serve as a corporate policy guide, laboratory manual, or an endorsement of any product, as much of the information is of a speculative in nature. The author assumes no responsibility for any loss or damage that might result from reliance on the reported information or from its use.
Report Code: AVM058A, Published: October 2007, Analyst: Jordan Sheridan
