What is a sensor?
A piezoelectric sensor is a device that converts an electrical signal (a form of energy) from one form to another, so that the desired characteristics of the input energy appear in the output signal.
Sensors are the crucial first link in the measurement chain.
Sensor sensitivity can be expressed as an electrical quantity/physical parameter (e.g., pC/m/s²) or a physical parameter/electric quantity (e.g., Pa/V).
Sensor vs. Inductor
In some terminology, sensors and inductors are often used interchangeably-but in reality, they can be very different devices with different characteristics.
While in many cases both inductors and sensors respond to physical phenomena (e.g., temperature, pressure, vibration) and provide a measurable signal, usually an electrical signal, a sensor can receive an electrical signal and convert it into a physical signal (e.g., a loudspeaker).
An inductor is a more general term that can be used to describe an entire "system" used to record a physical phenomenon (e.g., a thermometer) or simply the sensing part of a larger system (e.g., a light sensor in a camera).
However, the definition of a sensor is narrower; it responds to changes in physical phenomena and converts them into measurable electrical phenomena, or vice versa.