Preface: Proceedings of the 9th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications ^†

This Issue of Engineering Proceedings assembles the papers presented at the 9th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications (ECSA-9), held online on 1–15 November 2022, through the sciforum.net platform developed by MDPI. The annual ECSA conference was initiated in 2014 on an online basis to allow global participation without concerns for travel and related expenditures. This type of conference is particularly appropriate and useful because research related to sensors is still developing rapidly, and a platform for a direct exchange of information about the latest findings may provide a further burst in the development of novel ideas.

This year's edition saw a continuously increased collaboration among the authors and the audience through live session presentations of a limited number of contributions selected among the around 100 submissions, all formaly reviewed and accepted by the chairs and/or by the conference committee members. Video recordings of the sessions and open access to papers and presentations can be found online at https://ecsa-9.sciforum.net/.

ECSA-9 collected contributions concerning six thematic areas which are deeply affected by the rapid development of sensors and data processing: chemo- and biosensors, physical sensors, sensor networks and IoT, remote sensing, sensor data analytics, and applications. Two keynote presentations were also delivered by Olivier Français, Head of the Health, Energy and Environment Department at ESIEE Paris of Université Gustave Eiffel, and by Christian Piovera, Laser Systems and Processes Manager, ProbeCard Process R&D department at Technoprobe.

Beyond these events, a student session gathered the contributions by eigth PhD students, all competing for a student award. After the conference, the chairs unanimously awarded the competition prize to Derek Hayden from York University for his contribution entitled “Arduino-Based Sensing Platform for Rapid, Low-Cost, and High Sensitivity Detection and Quantification of Analytes in Fluidic Samples”. Another award was established for the Best Contribution to the Conference, and was granted ex aequo to Sanghamitra Chakraborty from Infineon Technologies, for her contribution entitled “Understanding the behavior of gas sensors using explainable AI”, and to Maria Eulàlia Parés from Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya, for her contribution entitled “Conscious Walk Methodology Design for Acoustic, Air Quality and Biodiversity Evaluation in Urban Environments”. Each awards consisted of 500 CHF. Our sincere congratulations to the awardees for the great results achieved in their research activities and for the enthusiastic presentations during the live sessions.

A companion Special Issue of Sensors, hosted at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors/special_issues/39LRY1KN70, will collect full-length versions of selected papers.

We extend warm thanks to Jason Liu and Nora Zhang for their extraordinary editorial work and support before, during, and after ECSA-9.