Use of a 3-D Wireless Power Transfer Technique as a Method for Capsule Localization

Capsule endoscopy has been heralded as a technological milestone in the diagnosis and therapeutics of gastrointestinal (GI) pathologies. The location and position of the capsule within the GI tract are important information for subsequent surgical intervention or local drug delivery. Accurate information of capsule location is therefore required during endoscopy. Although radio frequency (RF)-based, magnetic tracking and video localization have been investigated in the past, the complexity of those systems and potential inaccuracy in the localization data necessitate the scope for further research. This article proposes the dual use of a wireless power transfer (WPT) configuration as a method to enable the determination of the location of an endoscopic capsule. Measurements conducted on a homogeneous agar-based liquid phantom predict a maximum error of 12% between the calculated and measured trajectories of the capsule in a working volume of 100 mm $\times 100$ mm $\times 100$ mm

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

Bounds on RF cooperative localization for video capsule endoscopy

Wireless video capsule endoscopy has been in use for over a decade and it uses radio frequency (RF) signals to transmit approximately fifty five thousands clear pictures of inside the GI tract to the body-mounted sensor array. However, physician has no clue on the exact location of the capsule inside the GI tract to associate it with the pictures showing abnormalities such as bleeding or tumors. It is desirable to use the same RF signal for localization of the VCE as it passes through the human GI tract. In this thesis, we address the accuracy limits of RF localization techniques for VCE localization applications. We present an assessment of the accuracy of cooperative localization of VCE using radio frequency (RF) signals with particular emphasis on localization inside the small intestine. We derive the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) for cooperative location estimators using the received signal strength(RSS) or the time of arrival (TOA) of the RF signal. Our derivations are based on a three-dimension human body model, an existing model for RSS propagation from implant organs to body surface and a TOA ranging error model for the effects of non-homogenity of the human body on TOA of the RF signals. Using models for RSS and TOA errors, we first calculate the 3D CRLB bounds for cooperative localization of the VCE in three major digestive organs in the path of GI tract: the stomach, the small intestine and the large intestine. Then we analyze the performance of localization techniques on a typical path inside the small intestine. Our analysis includes the effects of number of external sensors, the external sensor array topology, number of VCE in cooperation and the random variations in transmit power from the capsule

Determining the Position and Orientation of In-body Medical Instruments Using Reactive Magnetic Field Mapping

There has been a huge demand for localizing in-body medical instruments (IBMI), such as wireless capsule endoscope (WCE) and nasogastric tube (NGT). Some stud ies have been conducted to solve this issue over the last three decades. In these studies, they either used a permanent magnet (PM), a static current source (SCS), radio frequency (RF) fields or integration of two of these. The PM is a stable and reliable magnetic field source. However, due to the size restriction of the NGT and the WCE, only a small PM can be used. Subsequently, the small size issue causes low power delivery at the larger tracking distance. Also, the PM field is very susceptible to ambient noise, and the PM-based localization is not possible in ap plications requiring robotic actuation. Even though an SCS can be used to replace the permanent magnet, and thus the current level can be varied in relation to the dis tance for optimized power delivery, it requires a relatively high power to generate a higher strength magnetic field. Consequently, a more powerful and larger battery is needed to feed the circuit.Radio frequency field sources require high frequencies to achieve sufficient precision, but these frequencies undergo high attenuation in the body. Therefore, the low-frequency RF field is preferred 1 . In the near-field 2 , plane wave assumption of the far-field fails for localization methods since the waves in this region are spherical. Hence, the wave-front has to be formulated by both the range and the direction of arrival (DOA). The DOA requires the phase difference of neighbouring sensors to be calculated. However, if the operating wavelength is much larger than the distance between the source and the receiver, it is not feasible to compute the phase difference between the neigh bouring sensors. Thus, there are numerous algorithms in the literature to overcome these issues, such as MUSIC or ESPRIT which are either complicated or computa tionally expensive. In RF-based localization, generally the time of arrival (TA), the time differ ence of arrival (TDA), the angle of arrival (AOA) and the received signal strength (RSS) are widely used for localization. However, the TA and TDA require accu rate knowledge of field speed and good time synchronization. It is not possible to accurately know while travelling through the body tissues due to complexity of the tissues. The AOA is also impractical for intra-body applications owing to multiple reflections signal from the tissues, commonly known as the multipath effect. The RSS precision is dependent on good knowledge of power loss in complex body tis sues. Also, the RSS method requires accurate knowledge of the transmitted signal strength. However, the power of transmitted frequencies may vary due to the ca pacitive effect of human tissue on Resonant frequency of source, hence RSS-based techniques prove difficult in practice. Therefore, a novel method of mapping the magnetic field vector in the near field region is proposed. This magnetic field mapping (MFM) uses single-axis coils placed orthogonally with respect to a sensor plane (SP). These single-axis sensors pick up only the orthogonal component of the magnetic field, which varies as a function of the orientation of the source and distance to the source. Thus, using this information, the field strength captured by each sensor is mapped to its correspond ing position on the SP as pixels. Next, these field strengths with known positions are used to detect the location and orientation of the field source relative to the SP. MATLAB and CST Microwave simulation were conducted, and many laboratory experiments were performed, and we show that the novel technique not only over comes the issues faced in the methods mentioned above but also accomplishes an accurate source positioning with a precision of better than ± 0.5 cm in 3-D and orientation with a maximum error of ±5◦

1-D broadside-radiating leaky-wave antenna based on a numerically synthesized impedance surface

A newly-developed deterministic numerical technique for the automated design of metasurface antennas is applied here for the first time to the design of a 1-D printed Leaky-Wave Antenna (LWA) for broadside radiation. The surface impedance synthesis process does not require any a priori knowledge on the impedance pattern, and starts from a mask constraint on the desired far-field and practical bounds on the unit cell impedance values. The designed reactance surface for broadside radiation exhibits a non conventional patterning; this highlights the merit of using an automated design process for a design well known to be challenging for analytical methods. The antenna is physically implemented with an array of metal strips with varying gap widths and simulation results show very good agreement with the predicted performance

Beam scanning by liquid-crystal biasing in a modified SIW structure

A fixed-frequency beam-scanning 1D antenna based on Liquid Crystals (LCs) is designed for application in 2D scanning with lateral alignment. The 2D array environment imposes full decoupling of adjacent 1D antennas, which often conflicts with the LC requirement of DC biasing: the proposed design accommodates both. The LC medium is placed inside a Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) modified to work as a Groove Gap Waveguide, with radiating slots etched on the upper broad wall, that radiates as a Leaky-Wave Antenna (LWA). This allows effective application of the DC bias voltage needed for tuning the LCs. At the same time, the RF field remains laterally confined, enabling the possibility to lay several antennas in parallel and achieve 2D beam scanning. The design is validated by simulation employing the actual properties of a commercial LC medium

Wireless communication and power harvesting in wearable contact lens sensors

The human eye contains multiple biomarkers related to various diseases, making electronic contact lens an ideal non-invasive platform for their diagnosis and treatment. Recent advances in technology have enabled the monitoring and diagnosis of glaucoma from Intraocular Pressure (IOP) detection, diabetes from glucose concentration detections, and other biosensors for pH and temperature sensing. Different sensor designs have led to distinct power transfer techniques, among which inductively coupled power transfer is considered most favourable for electronic contact lenses power delivery applications. Therefore, loop antenna, spiral shape antenna, and antenna with nanomaterials such as graphene and hybrid silver nanofibers have been explored under Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) frequency bands for both Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) and data communication. Notably, spiral antennas are also considered as the component of IOP sensing using capacitive sensors to detect the changes in frequency caused by pressure. This article reviews the state-of-the-art technologies in electronic contact lens sensors and their power delivery techniques. Herein, diverse sensing methods, materials, and power transfer techniques and the promising future trends and challenges in electronic contact lenses have been presented

Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAV) Assured Navigation in Search and Rescue Missions Robust Localization, Mapping and Detection

This Master's Thesis describes the developments on robust localization, mapping and detection algorithms for Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). The localization method proposes a seamless indoor-outdoor multi-sensor architecture. This algorithm is capable of using all or a subset of its sensor inputs to determine a platform's position, velocity and attitude (PVA). It relies on the Inertial Measurement Unit as the core sensor and monitors the status and observability of the secondary sensors to select the most optimum estimator strategy for each situation. Furthermore, it ensures a smooth transition between filters structures. This document also describes the integration mechanism for a set of common sensors such as GNSS receivers, laser scanners and stereo and mono cameras. The mapping algorithm provides a fully automated fast aerial mapping pipeline. It speeds up the process by pre-selecting the images using the flight plan and the onboard localization. Furthermore, it relies on Structure from Motion (SfM) techniques to produce an optimized 3D reconstruction of camera locations and sparse scene geometry. These outputs are used to compute the perspective transformations that project the raw images on the ground and produce a geo-referenced map. Finally, these maps are fused with other domains in a collaborative UGV and UAV mapping algorithms. The real-time aerial detection of victims is based on a thermal camera. The algorithm is composed by three steps. Firstly, a normalization of the image is performed to get rid of the background and to extract the regions of interest. Later the victim detection and tracking steps produce the real-time geo-referenced locations of the detections. The thesis also proposes the concept of a MAV Copilot, a payload composed by a set of sensors and algorithm the enhances the capabilities of any commercial MAV. To develop and validate these contributions, a prototype of a search and rescue MAV and the Copilot has been developed. These developments have been validated in three large-scale demonstrations of search and rescue operations in the context of the European project ICARUS: a shipwreck in Lisbon (Portugal), an earthquake in Marche (Belgium), and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in the euRathlon 2015 competition in Piombino (Italy)

Advances in Automated Driving Systems

Electrification, automation of vehicle control, digitalization and new mobility are the mega-trends in automotive engineering, and they are strongly connected. While many demonstrations for highly automated vehicles have been made worldwide, many challenges remain in bringing automated vehicles to the market for private and commercial use. The main challenges are as follows: reliable machine perception; accepted standards for vehicle-type approval and homologation; verification and validation of the functional safety, especially at SAE level 3+ systems; legal and ethical implications; acceptance of vehicle automation by occupants and society; interaction between automated and human-controlled vehicles in mixed traffic; human–machine interaction and usability; manipulation, misuse and cyber-security; the system costs of hard- and software and development efforts. This Special Issue was prepared in the years 2021 and 2022 and includes 15 papers with original research related to recent advances in the aforementioned challenges. The topics of this Special Issue cover: Machine perception for SAE L3+ driving automation; Trajectory planning and decision-making in complex traffic situations; X-by-Wire system components; Verification and validation of SAE L3+ systems; Misuse, manipulation and cybersecurity; Human–machine interactions, driver monitoring and driver-intention recognition; Road infrastructure measures for the introduction of SAE L3+ systems; Solutions for interactions between human- and machine-controlled vehicles in mixed traffic