Passive wireless microsensor and transponder systems for emerging applications

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Passive wireless microsensors including transponders are microsystems that harvest their operation power from radio-frequency waves sent by a base station known as interrogator. The absence of bulky batteries significantly not only reduces the physical dimension and implementation cost of these microsystems, but also removes the need for maintenance. As a result, these microsystems can be embedded in products permanently or implanted in living bodies to either provide a unique identification that distinguishes from others or provide the precision detection of the parameters of products that otherwise cannot be attained. The emerging applications of passive wireless microsensors include implantable bio-MEMS pressure sensors, implantable retinal prosthetic devices, swallowable capsule endoscopy, multisite pressure sensors for wireless arterial flow characterization, embedded micro-strain sensors for product performance and safety monitoring, wireless temperature sensors for human body and environmental monitoring. Passive wireless transponders have been used as radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags for object tracking in logistics automation and replacing bar codes in retailing, warehouse inventory automation, e-tickets, e-passports, to name a few. The intrinsic attributes of passive wireless transponders including small size, battery-less operation, programmability, low-cost, and wireless accessibility also make them a viable choice for low-cost high-security product authentication keys to avoid the difficulties and high cost of conventional product authentication means such as holograms, watermarks, invisible barcodes, security threads, chemical, and DNA markers. The objective of the research program is to develop low-cost high-reliable high-security passive wireless microsensor systems including passive wireless transponder systems for emerging applications in healthcare, product quality control, product authentication and counterfeiting, object tracking and assess management, security, logistics and warehouse automation, file management, etc. and capitalizing research findings in the form of technology transfer to Canadian industry.