The invention provides a universal rate-based transducer for advancing
diagnostic and predictive analyses of low frequency physical phenomena,
such as associated with heat and mass transfer, solid and fluid
mechanics, pressure and seismic analysis. In many applications, such as
in the fire metrology, aerospace, security and defense sectors, rate
information is crucial for reaching fast and reliable diagnosis and
prediction. In one preferred embodiment, the invention comprises a
universal voltage rate sensor interface that accurately recovers the
instantaneous heating/cooling rate, dT/dt. Upon appropriate calibration,
this sensor interface allows real-time extraction of rates associated
with many physical quantities of interest (e.g., temperature, heat flux,
concentration, strain, stress, pressure, intensity, etc.).