Here's the entire link regarding sensor tech
Sense of purpose
State coalition's efforts to establish sensor tech hub starts with CSU
Chuck Alexander, managing director of the Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering, says the coalition has plans to build its headquarters, which would include office space and a lab, at Cleveland State University.
Photo credit: MARC GOLUB
+ PHOTO ZOOM
By CHUCK SODER
4:30 am, April 28, 2008
A state-financed coalition aiming to turn Ohio into a hub for sensor technology aims to build its $11 million headquarters on the site of a former restaurant at Cleveland State University.
The deal to create the headquarters on the Euclid Avenue site has yet to be finalized, but members of the Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering are working under the assumption that they will build on the location, said Chuck Alexander, managing director for the coalition.
Cleveland State, which is leading the Wright Center coalition, plans to have Euclid Avenue Housing Corp. buy the site at 1910 Euclid Ave., which is the location of the former Best Steak and Gyros restaurant. The university-run nonprofit would own the headquarters, once built, and lease it to Cleveland State, Dr. Alexander said.
Besides office space for the Wright Center, the 22,000-square-foot, three-story building would house a sterile laboratory, or clean room, that institutions and companies could use to create the packaging needed to hook up sensors within products ranging from industrial machines to automobile engines.
It also would provide space for sensor-related companies to set up shop for months at a time while using the clean room as well as ground-floor office space for unrelated tenants.
Cleveland State likes the site because of its visibility, said Dr. Alexander, who also is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university.
“They wanted to promote it,” he said.
The university is negotiating with Heartland Developers LLC of Cleveland, which holds an option to develop the site, said Jack Boyle, vice president for business affairs and finance at Cleveland State. He was uncertain who owns the location, but the web site of the Cuyahoga County Auditor's office states it's owned by P & WF Inc. of Cleveland.
Should negotiations go as planned, construction could start in June and be finished in a year, Mr. Boyle said.
The headquarters is just one part of the Wright Center.
The coalition of universities and companies is putting $73 million toward the creation of six sensor systems labs and five industry-led sensor projects.
The group received $23 million from the Ohio Third Frontier Project and is in the process of raising the rest.
The other schools housing sensor labs will be Case Western Reserve University, the University of Akron, Lorain County Community College, Ohio State University and Wright State University. The three Northeast Ohio universities are renovating current space.
Each lab would have different specialties, which would allow companies to turn sensors into ready-for-use sensor systems without leaving the state, said Dave Hiscock, who's overseeing facilities development for the Wright Center. Right now, sensor companies typically leave the state to find the best technology to package the devices, Mr. Hiscock said.
“It's almost always outsourced,” he said.
Mr. Hiscock noted that his company, Haric LLC of Cleveland, has its sensor systems assembled in Santa Clara, Calif., but it would consider moving that work to Ohio once the chain of labs is in place.
Tallmadge beckons
One company already is starting operations in Ohio because of the Wright Center.
Sensiics Inc., a spinoff of a Chicago semiconductor designer, plans to open a headquarters in Tallmadge within three months because its president, Mike Ward, wanted to collaborate with the Wright Center coalition. Sensiics wants to create a line of circuit products that would convert digital signals sent by sensors into a readable analog format.
Sensiics' eight employees are paid by the Wright Center and the University of Akron, but Mr. Ward said he expects the company eventually to pay for a larger staff.
He's even teaching classes at Akron related to designing sensor interfaces to build a work force for himself and other companies, said Mr. Ward, a Sandusky native.
“There aren't a whole lot of people who are good at it,” he said.
Sensiics is one of several companies participating in five industry projects financed by the Wright Center.
Others include companies such as Milwaukee-based Rockwell Auto-mation, which runs a Mayfield Heights plant, and Orbital Research Inc. of Cleveland.
Those research projects have been under way since last summer and could demonstrate the Wright Center's abilities to other companies, said Don Majcher, center operations director.
“Success on the projects will lead to