Communication system for a tooth-mounted RF sensor used for continuous monitoring of nutrient intake

In this Thesis, the communication system of a wearable device that monitors the user’s diet is studied. Based in a novel RF metamaterial-based mouth sensor, different decisions have to be made concerning the system’s technologies, such as the power source options for the device, the wireless technology used for communications and the method to obtain data from the sensor. These issues, along with other safety rules and regulations, are reviewed, as the first stage of development of the Food-Intake Monitoring projectOutgoin

Experimental performance evaluation and design of schemes for passive RFID network

Passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a short range technology for transferring information. The main advantage of passive RFID systems over active communication systems is the battery-less operation at the client sides. However, there are two major challenges that limit the widespread adaptation of passive RFID systems: short communication range and low read rate in dense deployments. This dissertation addresses these issues by studying the root causes and develops solutions for them. In this dissertation, understanding the backscattering behavior of antennas and also the mutual coupling interactions among them are found to be the root causes of the two above-mentioned challenges for RFID networks. Thus, by studying these two main root causes solutions for them are proposed, investigated and verified, by simulations and measurements. The contributions in this dissertation include: (1) Design of a new measurement technique to estimate the structural scattering coefficient of a linear antenna. (2) Showing that the well-known Green model cannot completely explain the variation of the radar cross section of a T-match bowtie antenna over its Г plane. (3) Introducing dual loading in designing RFID antenna tags to: (a) Increase the vector differential backscattering signal, (b) Produce higher order modulations. (4) Introducing a new state for RFID tags in that tags switch to a low scattering states to: (a) suppress their interference to a target antenna in the network. (b) Stabilize the RCS of the target antenna. (c) Increase read rate in RFID networks. (5) Numeric analysis of the mutual coupling impedance for two side by side scattering antennas. (6) Introducing a multi-port RFID which can switch to different load impedances to help a target antenna in its vicinity increase its signal over the level when the target is alone in the field --Abstract, page iv

Conformal Magnetic Composite RFID for Wearable RF and Bio-Monitoring Applications

©2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or distribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.10.1109/TMTT.2008.2006810This paper introduces for the first time a novel flexible magnetic composite material for RF identification (RFID) and wearable RF antennas. First, one conformal RFID tag working at 480 MHz is designed and fabricated as a benchmarking prototype and the miniaturization concept is verified. Then, the impact of the material is thoroughly investigated using a hybrid method involving electromagnetic and statistical tools. Two separate statistical experiments are performed, one for the analysis of the impact of the relative permittivity and permeability of the proposed material and the other for the evaluation of the impact of the dielectric and magnetic loss on the antenna performance. Finally, the effect of the bending of the antenna is investigated, both on the S-parameters and on the radiation pattern. The successful implementation of the flexible magnetic composite material enables the significant miniaturization of RF passives and antennas in UHF frequency bands, especially when conformal modules that can be easily fine-tuned are required in critical biomedical and pharmaceutical applications

RFID Localisation For Internet Of Things Smart Homes: A Survey

The Internet of Things (IoT) enables numerous business opportunities in fields as diverse as e-health, smart cities, smart homes, among many others. The IoT incorporates multiple long-range, short-range, and personal area wireless networks and technologies into the designs of IoT applications. Localisation in indoor positioning systems plays an important role in the IoT. Location Based IoT applications range from tracking objects and people in real-time, assets management, agriculture, assisted monitoring technologies for healthcare, and smart homes, to name a few. Radio Frequency based systems for indoor positioning such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a key enabler technology for the IoT due to its costeffective, high readability rates, automatic identification and, importantly, its energy efficiency characteristic. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art RFID technologies in IoT Smart Homes applications. It presents several comparable studies of RFID based projects in smart homes and discusses the applications, techniques, algorithms, and challenges of adopting RFID technologies in IoT smart home systems.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, 3 table