A new optically reconfigurable tag conception and a low noise amplifier design for RFID systems

Orientador: Leonardo Lorenzo Bravo RogerDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de TecnologiaResumo: Um sistema de identificação por rádio frequência (RFID) é composto por três principais componentes, as etiquetas, fixadas no objeto que se deseja identificar, o leitor, associado a um sistema de processamento de informação e a antena. Nesta dissertação, apresentam-se duas significativas contribuições, a primeira delas foca na etiqueta, na qual se combinou os benefícios das etiquetas passivas com as vantagens propiciadas pela inserção na mesma de uma chave de silício, para criar um dispositivo opticamente reconfigurável. A segunda contribuição teve como foco o leitor do sistema RFID e consistiu no desenvolvimento de um projeto prático de amplificadores de baixo ruído (LNA, "Low Noise Amplifier') que, ao ser inserido no leitor, melhora o desempenho do sistema como um todo. Portanto, realizaram-se contribuições em duas das três partes que compõe um sistema de RFIDAbstract: radio frequency identification system (RFID) consists of three main components, the labels, fixed on the object that is desired to identify, the reader, associated to an information processing system and the antenna. In this thesis are presented two significant contributions, the first one focuses on the label, which combined the benefits of passive tags with the advantages afforded by the insertion of a silicon switch in its structure, to create an optically reconfigurable device. The second contribution, focused on the RFID reader and consisted in developing a practical design of low-noise amplifiers (LNA) design, which when inserted into the reader improves the whole system performance. Therefore contributions were performed on two of the three parts that make up an RFID systemMestradoSistemas de Informação e ComunicaçãoMestra em Tecnologi

Flexible sensors—from materials to applications

Flexible sensors have the potential to be seamlessly applied to soft and irregularly shaped surfaces such as the human skin or textile fabrics. This benefits conformability dependant applications including smart tattoos, artificial skins and soft robotics. Consequently, materials and structures for innovative flexible sensors, as well as their integration into systems, continue to be in the spotlight of research. This review outlines the current state of flexible sensor technologies and the impact of material developments on this field. Special attention is given to strain, temperature, chemical, light and electropotential sensors, as well as their respective applications

Modern Telemetry

Telemetry is based on knowledge of various disciplines like Electronics, Measurement, Control and Communication along with their combination. This fact leads to a need of studying and understanding of these principles before the usage of Telemetry on selected problem solving. Spending time is however many times returned in form of obtained data or knowledge which telemetry system can provide. Usage of telemetry can be found in many areas from military through biomedical to real medical applications. Modern way to create a wireless sensors remotely connected to central system with artificial intelligence provide many new, sometimes unusual ways to get a knowledge about remote objects behaviour. This book is intended to present some new up to date accesses to telemetry problems solving by use of new sensors conceptions, new wireless transfer or communication techniques, data collection or processing techniques as well as several real use case scenarios describing model examples. Most of book chapters deals with many real cases of telemetry issues which can be used as a cookbooks for your own telemetry related problems

The Internet of Individuation

This thesis engages in a sustained reconsideration of a new and evolving technology - the Internet of Things - along social scientific and philosophical lines. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a novel technical paradigm which connects 'things' in a way that allows them to collect and communicate sense data for analysis and action. IoT systems range from the everyday realm of smart home devices to government-backed agricultural management networks, massive industrial complexes spanning international supply chains and telecommunications networks themselves. The thesis does not seek to determine whether the Internet of Things' social effects are, or will be, progressive or regressive. Nor does it prescribe policy or other guidelines for its applications. Rather, the purpose of the thesis is to provide a critical engagement with the paradigmatic framing of the Internet of Things, to unpack the assumptions underpinning the practical accounts of its function, as well as the social scientific and popular evaluations that stem from these more common sense claims of the Internet of Things as a technological innovation. The thesis offers a more ontologically processual account of the Internet of Things, with an eye to grasping its participation in the ongoing production of novelty. To this end, the main body of this thesis rethinks each of the IoT's basic technical operations: communication, sensing, and actuation. Each of these operations are transformed so that their technical realities are shown to be compatible with social scientific thought. Communication can be seen as modulation, sensing as concretization, and actuation as transduction. Three empirical chapters furnish these transformations with qualitative interviews with IoT practitioners in Australia and abroad: student-run engineering labs in Canberra; the office of a smart building company bursting with dreams and tangles of wires; a watering system for a national Arboretum; a former IT consultant who runs a farm in Yass, NSW; and a smart city consulting agency in the UK that specializes in experimental and community-based IoT installations. These case studies are more than interesting instances of IoT systems; approached from a processual framework, they show how possible it is for social scientists to think about, write about, and interact with technical reality in more critical and productive ways. This thesis thus contributes an original analysis of the Internet of Things using a process ontology framework. Specifically, it uses the work of Gilbert Simondon, Gilles Deleuze, and their contemporaries to repose the 'problem' of the Internet of Things as an open problematic. Although studies in the sociology of technology have considered the IoT in general, there is not yet an extended analysis of the Internet of Things as a processual phenomenon in Australia or elsewhere. As such, this thesis provides additional insight into the Internet of Things as an object of study and a specific phenomenon unfolding in Australia and overseas, and discusses what new methods of problematizing that the social sciences might adopt to engage with it

Telemedicine

Telemedicine is a rapidly evolving field as new technologies are implemented for example for the development of wireless sensors, quality data transmission. Using the Internet applications such as counseling, clinical consultation support and home care monitoring and management are more and more realized, which improves access to high level medical care in underserved areas. The 23 chapters of this book present manifold examples of telemedicine treating both theoretical and practical foundations and application scenarios

Development, Optimisation and Applications of Screen-Printed Electrochemical Sensors

The sustainability of healthcare delivery depends on the adoption of new low-cost devices to support the transition of services from centralised generic models to home and community-based care models, through which the patient status can be monitored remotely. Easily accessible body fluids (like saliva, sweat and interstitial fluids) represent alternative sampling media to blood that in principle can be conveniently analysed through wearable sensors. For instance, continuous monitoring of pH in saliva would allow a better clinical management of pathologies that alter acid contents within the mouth. Similarly, the real-time tracking of sodium levels in sweat and other body fluids can assist clinicians in the diagnosis and treatment of Cystic Fibrosis. Furthermore, athletes could reap many benefits from an optimal strategy for personalised rehydration, which might be informed by continuously measuring the amount of minerals lost in sweat. Electrochemical sensors based on the combination of screen-printed working and solid-contact reference electrodes are versatile and low-cost tools that are effective in facing many of the challenges in current sensing technology. They can be readily adapted for the detection of several ionic species, and in this thesis, as an example, two electrochemical platforms to monitor pH in saliva and sodium in sweat are going to be presented. The final devices are minimally-invasive and wearable, with a compact format due to the integration of miniaturised solid state ion-selective and reference electrodes. The technological advancements developed for their realisation are significant contributions for the more flexible design of novel miniaturised sensors for remote monitoring in general. Future developments of this technology could be pivotal for realising devices for applications as diverse as sensors integrated into fabrics for personal health monitoring, or autonomous sensors deployed in rivers and lakes for monitoring water quality