A wireless potentiostat for mobile chemical sensing and biosensing

A transformative revolution has been triggered by the inclusion of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors in healthcare’s real-time tracking capabilities. Recent advancements in miniaturization and low-power designs, wireless connectivity, and sensor fusion (integration of information from multiple sensors) continue to have a profound impact on the monitoring of health. Intelligent embeddability and superior sensing capabilities facilitate seamless patient data tracking, and strong security protects data against breaches. The role of IoT sensors in healthcare is to connect devices, such as biometric and temperature sensors or imaging and environmental sensors. IoT sensors are used in multiple applications such as fitness and vital signs tracking information, and patient care in smart healthcare facilities. Such technologies enable IoT-based medication adherence systems so that patients follow prescribed treatments, thus improving outcomes and reducing the possibility of hospital readmissions. Compared to regular monitoring devices, IoT sensors provide continuous data capture, increased accuracy, improved patient mobility and personalized healthcare solutions. Healthcare IoT adoption faces challenges in data privacy, regulation, and the complexity of technical integration of healthcare IoT in existing infrastructures. Ethical considerations must also be addressed to ensure equitable access and unbiased use of IoT technology. However, despite these obstacles, the future of IoT-based healthcare technologies remains an attractive proposition with continuous technology evolution likely to improve the quality of care, optimal resource allocation, and decision-making in real-time. This chapter explores the evolution of healthcare monitoring through IoT sensors, detailing their technological mechanisms, applications, benefits, and the potential for transforming the healthcare landscape.

The recent advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT) has promoted for finding or localizing objects with different technologies. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology has been widely used in indoor localization applications due to its ease of deployment and low cost. With passive RFID tags, an object can be localized within less than 10cm. However, passive RFID localization systems cannot provide easy localization due to its limited reading range. Using Active RFID tags will provide longer localization range to a lost object. However, while pairing the mobile phone with the tag, the phone may capture any tag in its reading range; thus, the tag pairing process may be done improperly. Alternatively, Near Field Communication (NFC) has been proposed as an extension to the RFID technology in which the reader must be within close proximity to the NFC tag for achieving the reading task. With the deployment of NFC, several mobile phone applications have been developed employing NFC in payments and contactless systems. However, due to the short localization range of NFC, it becomes extremely difficult to find a lost item. Currently, RFID and NFC have been employed in object localization systems separately. Alternatively, in this paper we propose Radio Frequency Near Communication (RFNC) is an integrated RFID- NFC system for localization of lost item. Our experiments integrating RFID and NFC technologies confirm that NFC technology can be a complement to the RFID technology rather than an alternative.

Chapter 2.1 - Wearable Bio and Chemical Sensors

Every now and then, our lives are influenced by the development of technologies and this had changed the perception of business in several ways. Now the world is focusing on wireless devices that can be developed to have exchange of data either using internet or not. Near Field Communication (NFC) is one of the devices that has the capability to securely exchange data with its paired devices and Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) is developed to broadcast a unique identifying number upon request. This paper concentrates on the security element in the NFC and RFID in the implementation of NFC technology in blood transfusion; to solve the problems of human error and to avoid from transfusing different blood types than the ones actually needed by the patient. The information in the wrist tag should be synchronized with the current hospital system. This NFC technology is also for reducing the use of paper-based documents, consequently promoting green technology. As a result, choosing the NFC or RFID based on the security features is very important for patient identification as well as moving towards green technology.

One of the most important limitations for people with visual impairment is the inability of unassisted navigation and orientation in unfamiliar buildings. An low-cost indoor navigation system, which is based on mobile terminals, supporting technology Near Field Communication (NFC), and Java program access to Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, is developed. The proposed navigation system enables users to imagine the map of the rooms (dimensions, relative position of points of interest). This information is stored in RFID tags in WAP Binary eXtensible Markup Language (WBXML) format. The system allows leaving audio messages that are recorded in RFID tags in Adaptive Multi Rate (AMR) format. Voice enabled navigation, that is familiar to users with visual disabilities, is used.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is an advancement of inductively coupled proximity Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and smart card technology. In our work we demonstrate proximity based relay attack simulations, within a University campus test environment. Consequently, the experiment required the use NFC enabled mobile devices of the Android and IOS operating systems. We produced attack simulations on different proximity relay ranges confirming how easy it is becoming to compromise these mobile payment devices by way of eavesdropping, and deliberately forcing unauthorized access to the point that our results challenges the ISO 14443 standard definition on the NFC ranges as counter-intuitive. Our efforts contend the need for the standards on range proximity as the underlying goal of our study. In this context the research sought to answer three (3) research questions namely: 1. To what extent can you evaluate a relay attack on an NFC mobile device near ranges? 2. To what extent can you evaluate a relay attack on an NFC mobile device within far ranges? 3. How does the results compare in questions (1) to question (2)?

Near Field Communication (NFC) is emerged in the last decade. NFC is a short range high frequency and low bandwidth wireless communication technology. Passive Radio Frequency identification (RFID) tags are usually used with a system where one end of communication is isolated and powerless in nature. There are several applications of RFID-NFC systems despite of its drawback such as communication can happen between only two devices at a time and, its short range (0–20 cm). In this paper, the simulation results of a novel antenna at 13.56 MHz are presented. NFC works on both active and passive devices using various modes of operation. Its short-range property is utilized here for authentication of degree certificate awarded by universities. The antenna is flexible, robust and light weight so that it can be easily sandwiched inside the paper. In this paper a NFC antenna is designed which is ideal for manufacturing and assembling into the thin layers of degree certificate paper issued by examining authority. Calculations are done to select antenna dimensions before the final process. An antenna design is achieved using simulations and parameter optimization with simple method without making it complicated.

Wireless smart tag with on-board conductometric chemical sensor

Wearable sensors can be used to monitor many interesting parameters about the wearer’s physiology and environment, with important applications in personal health and well-being, sports performance and personal safety. Wearable chemical sensors can monitor the status of the wearer by accessing body fluids, such as sweat, in an unobtrusive manner. They can also be used to protect the wearer from hazards in the environment by sampling potentially harmful gas emissions, such as carbon monoxide. Integrating chemical sensors into textile structures is a challenging and complex task. Issues which must be considered include sample collection, calibration, waste handling, fouling and reliability. Sensors must also be durable and comfortable to wear. Here, we present examples of wearable chemical sensors that monitor the person and also his/her environment. We also discuss the issues involved in developing wearable chemical sensors and strategies for sensor design and textile integration.

130 million people in Western Europe and the USA suffer from chronic cardiac degeneration or kidney insufficiency. The medical treatment requires a routine medical examination accompanied by laboratory blood analyses. This is cost-intensive for the health care system and also time consuming for the patients. This paper presents an economical, wireless sensor node solution in terms of an intelligent near field communication (NFC) potassium measurement strip (NPMS) usable in a home environment. The NPMS comprises two different electrochemical sensors for the acquisition of two parameters in capillary blood and an autonomous sense and identification grain (ASIG) for the electrical analysis, communication, and data transfer. The ASIG is equipped with an integrated amperometric and potentiostatic functionality, radio frequency identification (RFID) interface for high frequency (HF)/NFC, and has been designed using a 130 nm CMOS standard process. It facilitates the implementation of two different measurement techniques, which are necessary for the accurate determination of the potassium concentration in capillary blood, whereby the occurrence of hemolysis can be detected. This NPMS impresses with its large scale integration and is solely powered by the NFC reader device.

In recent years much progress has been made in the integration of physical transducers into clothing e.g. breathing rate, heart rate and temperature [1]. The integration of chemical sensing into textiles adds a new dimension to the field of smart clothing. Wearable chemical sensors may be used to provide valuable information about the wearer’s health, monitoring the wearer during their daily routine within their natural environment. In addition to physiological measurements chemical sensors may also be used to monitor the wearer’s surrounding environment, identifying safety concerns and detecting threats. Whether the clothes are looking into the wearer’s personal health status or looking out into the surroundings, chemical sensing calls for a novel approach to sensor and textile integration. In contrast to physical sensors, chemical sensors and biosensors depend on selective reactions happening at an active surface which must be directly exposed to a sample. Therefore issues of fluid handling, calibration and safety must be considered. This paper discusses the constraints in integrating chemical sensors into a textile substrate. Methods of fluid control using inherently conducting polymers (ICPs) are discussed and a pH textile sensor is presented. This sensor uses colorimetric techniques using LEDs controlled by a wireless platform. Some of the potential applications of wearable chemical sensors are discussed.

In July 2010, more than 5 billions of Earth inhabitants (out of 6.8) had a cell phone (Ericsson Study) with more than 2 millions of new subscribers a day in 2010. We expect 3.3 billion of Smart phones in 2015, Google just announced mid November 2010 that their Nexus "S" smart phones will be NFC (Near Field Communication) by the end of 2010. This changes drastically the landscape of information service engineering. RFID tags and NFC standard in cell phones will be cornerstone of the ICT future in this new paradigm of "local wide web": "Smart objects with smart phones on ...smart LOCAL places is a summary of our digital future; digital divide will not be on infrastructure but on SERVICES". In this paper we give an overview of a portfolio of NFC innovative services prototyped at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis since the inception of the standard in 2004, infer some architectural and economics lessons, and propose a key research contribution based upon a genuine generic framework for multi-mode NFC applications within a SIM card.

Radio frequency identification (RFID), and more recently the development of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, have popularized the idea of linking real-world products with online information and services. Apart from early prototypes, however, the benefits of such automated identification technologies have so far been mostly available to industry, rather than consumers. With the next generation of mobile phones capable of reading both traditional bar codes through their integrated cameras, as well as RFID tags using the NFC standard, end-users themselves could take full advantage of such ubiquitous identification labels, given novel information architectures that go beyond simple web pages or industrial enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. This paper presents an open lookup infrastructure that allows commercial, public, and private entities to easily provide information and services associated with tagged items, thus facilitating the rapid development and deployment of applications based on everyday products.

The adaptability of sensorial capabilities is crucial for the performing of daily activities in intelligent environments. There are a number of features that have to be considered, however, in order to avoid constraints of certain technologies. In this work we analyze model and interaction changes using Radiofrequency Identification (RFID) and Near Field Communication (NFC) technologies. When these kinds of technologies are adapted in an attempt to put proactive systems into practice, context-aware applications can suffer some changes; the interaction involved also undergoes changes.

Near-Field Communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless communication technology evolved from RFID especially for the exchange of data between active and passive devices. This paper presents the mathematical models for the signal path of a NFC transceiver system and a behavioral simulation platform using MATLAB simulink. The approximated mathematical models simplify the simulation complexity of a transceiver and provide a quick evaluation. With this calculation platform, we can evaluate the system performance caused by the noise and the non-linearity of the individual blocks, and caused by system variables such as Effective Number of Bits (ENOB) of ADC and filter cutoff frequency. This platform provides us with a rapid prototyping, a reliable system design, and an efficient risk management during development of the NFC transceiver ICs.