基于太赫兹超材料的微流体折射率传感器

设计加工了一种太赫兹超材料微流体传感器件,利用时域有限差分法（Finite Difference Time Domain,FDTD）对其在太赫兹波段的传输、谐振及传感特性进行数值模拟。采用太赫兹时域光谱系统实验研究了偏振方向对传感器灵敏度的影响。实验结果表明,当超材料谐振环开口方向与入射太赫兹波的偏振方向平行和垂直时,折射率传感灵敏度可分别达到39.29 GHz/RIU和74.43 GHz/RIU。通过等效电路模型对该超材料器件的传输和谐振特性做了分析,并进一步明确了其传感机制。该超材料器件可对微量液体（5 l/mm2）实现芯片式的折射率传感,具有较高的传感灵敏度,在化学生物传感器的设计和制造领域具有潜在的应用前景。     

基于新型RFID的无线无源气体传感器研究

基于射频识别(RFID)的无线无源气体传感器通过敏感材料对RFID天线进行调制,从而实现气体敏感,但其存在只能定距离检测,检测距离短,实用性差等问题。该文提出了一种具有阻抗型负载接入、驱动和检测功能的新型RFID芯片,研制出一种基于新型RFID芯片的无线无源气体传感器,实现了对含磷有毒有害气体的无线无源检测,检测下限可达5×10^-6,检测距离可达1.6 m。结果表明,传感器检测精度不受距离变化的影响,从而展现出较好的应用前景。     

纺织基底无芯片RFID 湿度传感器

研制了一种无湿敏材料的纺织基底无芯片RFID 湿度传感器用于检测环境湿度。通过射频仿真软件 HFSS,获得谐振频率在2. 45 GHz 具有较高品质因数的纺织基底谐振器模型,对以谐振频率偏移量作为灵敏度指标 的检测原理进行了仿真。利用丝网印刷工艺和刻绘工艺分别在不同类型纺织物上制作了无芯片RFID 湿度传感器, 系统研究了制作工艺、纺织品类型和厚度对传感器湿敏特性的影响。结果表明,0. 5 mm 厚度下不同基底类型湿度传 感器的灵敏度由高至低依次为:棉基底、亚麻基底、聚酯纤维基底,恢复特性呈相反顺序,其中棉基底传感器在高湿 范围内平均灵敏度达3. 8 MHz/ %RH,聚酯纤维基底传感器恢复度达86%;相同类型的棉纺织基底下基底厚度越大, 平均湿度灵敏度越高,恢复特性越差。传感器稳定性测试表明传感器具有较好的中长期稳定性。对纺织基底湿度 传感器的感湿机理进行了分析,纺织纤维中的亲水基团与水分子间形成氢键,改变了基底的介电参数,传感器的湿 敏特性与组成纺织品的纤维成分、纤维细度、编织方式有关。     

太赫兹超材料生物检测应用研究进展

超材料作为一种具备超常物理性质的人工复合材料,能够突破常规材料的限制,为设计先进功能材料开辟一种全新的思路。太赫兹波由于具有光子能量低、对生物物质无电离损害和分子指纹谱等特性,通过与超材料结合,可实现对生物物质高灵敏检测,越来越受到国内外学者的广泛关注。本文总结了近几年来太赫兹超材料传感器在生物分子和细胞检测领域上取得的进展,首先介绍了太赫兹超材料传感器的传感原理和性能指标,其次从超材料结构设计、衬底选择、以及与微流控和新材料结合等方面阐述了太赫兹超材料传感器在生物检测领域的发展。通过对超材料结构进行优化、采用低介电常数薄型衬底、结合微流控技术或在传感器上粘附新材料涂层,可进一步提高超材料传感器的灵敏度,并丰富其在生物医学检测上的功能。最后,对太赫兹超材料传感器的发展趋势和前景进行了展望。     

适用于RFID标签及无线传感器的射频唤醒电路

有效的功耗管理是提升有源RFID标签以及无线传感器节点电池使用寿命的重要方法,一种无源射频唤醒电路可以用来控制标签以及传感器节点的工作状态,使之在外界无线电波控制下进行唤醒状态与休眠状态的切换,与传统周期性唤醒方法相比,该方法减少了大量能量损耗.围绕着提高射频唤醒电路灵敏度的指标,对阻抗匹配网络以及整流电路进行了优化.仿真和测试结果表明该电路在-27.7dBm输入功率下可以产生220mV直流输出.该唤醒电路本身无需耗电,实践表明将其应用在RFID标签及无线传感器节点设计中可显著提升电池使用寿命.     

Magneto-Mechanical Metamaterials with Widely Tunable Mechanical Properties and Acoustic Bandgaps

Mechanical metamaterials are architected manmade materials that allow for unique behaviors not observed in nature, making them promising candidates for a wide range of applications. Existing metamaterials lack tunability as their properties can only be changed to a limited extent after the fabrication. Herein, a new magneto-mechanical metamaterial is presented that allows great tunability through a novel concept of deformation mode branching. The architecture of this new metamaterial employs an asymmetric joint design using hard-magnetic soft active materials that permits two distinct actuation modes (bending and folding) under opposite-direction magnetic fields. The subsequent application of mechanical compression leads to the deformation mode branching where the metamaterial architecture transforms into two distinctly different shapes, which exhibit very different deformations and enable great tunability in properties such as mechanical stiffness and acoustic bandgaps. Furthermore, this metamaterial design can be incorporated with magnetic shape memory polymers with global stiffness tunability, which also allows for the global shift of the acoustic behaviors. The combination of magnetic and mechanical actuations, as well as shape memory effects, impart wide tunable properties to a new paradigm of metamaterials.     

3D Printed Fractal Metamaterials with Tunable Mechanical Properties and Shape Reconfiguration

Lattice metamaterials constructed by curved microstructures exhibit large stretchability and are promising in soft electronics and soft robotics. Fractal structures are particularly efficient in improving stretchability as it shows multiple-order uncurling. However, the development of fractal metamaterials is hindered by hierarchical structures and large deformations. In this study, a design framework combining experiments, hierarchical theoretical models, and finite element simulations is developed to program the mechanical behaviors of fractal metamaterials. For 3D printing, a digital design tool is developed to visualize the structure and automatically generate the manufacturing representations. Results show that large stretchability (≈360%), bionic stress–strain curve matching, and imperfection insensitivity can be programmed by tuning the geometric parameters. An integrated device of an electromyogram sensor embedded in an imperfection-insensitive fractal metamaterial that matches the J-shaped stress–strain curve of human skin is demonstrated. Light-emitting diode devices based on fractal metamaterial with shape reconfiguration are also presented. This st paves a new way to realize multifunctional soft devices using fractal metamaterials.     

Phase-Encoded Chipless RFID Transponder for Large-Scale Low-Cost Applications

A novel 3 b chipless RFID transponder is presented. The transponder comprises three microstrip patch antennas, which are loaded with open circuited (O/C) high impedance stubs. The antennas are resonant at nearby frequencies, and when excited with their respective resonant frequency signals, they re-radiate backscattered signals with distinct phase characteristics. This phase information is encoded as hexadecimal bits for the proposed chipless RFID tag. Both the CST Microwave Studio full-wave solver and the anechoic chamber measurements show a 30$^{circ}$ phase step for the 3 b chipless RFID transponder. It it easily transferred to printed technology, and it may find applications in the mass identification market.      

Taxonomy and Challenges of the Integration of RFID and Wireless Sensor Networks

Radio frequency identification and wireless sensor networks are two important wireless technologies that have a wide variety of applications in current and future systems. RFID facilitates detection and identification of objects that are not easily detectable or distinguishable by using conventional sensor technologies. However, it does not provide information about the condition of the objects it detects. WSN, on the other hand, not only provides information about the condition of the objects and environment but also enables multihop wireless communications. Hence, the integration of these technologies expands their overall functionality and capacity. This article investigates recent research work and applications that integrate RFID with sensor networks. Four classes of integration are discussed: integrating tags with sensors, integrating tags with WSN nodes and wireless devices, integrating readers with WSN nodes and wireless devices, and a mix of RFID and WSNs. Finally, a discussion of new challenges and future work is presented.     

双极化无芯片RFID金属裂纹传感器

为检测金属结构中裂纹的宽度及方向,提高检测的灵敏度和可靠性,设计了一种基于频率信号的双极化无芯片RFID传感器。在2.2~6.2 GHz频率范围内进行四频带分段设计,传感器为圆盘及双模圆盘多微带谐振器结构,利用HFSS软件对传感器进行结构优化与性能仿真。结果表明,传感器在x极化和y极化方向激励下,分别产生两组四位谐振。金属裂纹的方向根据谐振频率偏移方向判断,两种极化方式共产生八位谐振偏移信息供判定,可实现对0°、45°、90°、135°方向裂纹的准确识别;对各方向上裂纹宽度与传感器谐振频率偏移量进行拟合,两者间呈现良好的线性关系,且通过极化复用大幅提高了传感器的灵敏度,分辨率可达亚毫米级,在各个方向上灵敏度分别为40.71 MHz/0.1 mm、11.28 MHz/0.1 mm、26.04 MHz/0.1 mm、15.19 MHz/0.1 mm。制作了传感器实物并进行实验测试。设计的RFID传感器具有无源、低成本、灵敏度高的特点,在结构健康监测中具有应用潜力。     

RFID sensors based on ubiquitous passive 13.56‐MHz RFID tags and complex impedance detection

Passive radio frequency identification (RFID) sensors are attractive in diverse applications where sensor performance is needed at a low cost and when battery‐free operation is critical. We developed a general approach for adapting ubiquitous and cost‐effective passive 13.56‐MHz RFID tags for diverse sensing applications. In developed RFID sensors, the complex impedance of the RFID resonant antenna is measured and correlated to physical, chemical, or biological properties of interest. In contrast to known wireless sensors, developed RFID sensors combine several measured parameters from the resonant sensor antenna with multivariate data analysis and deliver unique capability for multianalyte sensing and rejection of environmental interferences with a single sensor. Theoretical calculations and experiments in an anechoic chamber demonstrate that the developed RFID sensors are immune to common electromagnetic interferences and the sensor/reader system operates within regulated emission levels. Performance of developed RFID sensors is illustrated in measurements of toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) in air with the detection limit (DL) of 80 parts per billion and in a non‐invasive monitoring of milk spoilage. Sensors selectivity is demonstrated in the detection of different vapors with individual sensors. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Chipless RFID tags fabricated by fully printing of metallic inks

This paper reviews recent advances in fully printed chipless radio frequency identification (RFID) technology with special concern on the discussion of coding theories, ID generating circuits, and tag antennas. Two types of chipless tags, one based on time-domain reflections and the other based on frequency domain signatures, are introduced. To enable a fully printed encoding circuit, linearly tapering technique is adopted in the first type of tags to cope with parasitic resistances of printed conductors. Both simulation and measurement efforts are made to verify the feasibility of the eight-bit fully printed paper-based tag. In the second type of tags, a group of LC tanks are exploited for encoding data in frequency domain with their resonances. The field measurements of the proof-of-concept of the tag produced by toner-transferring process and flexible printed circuit boards are provided to validate the practicability of the reconfigurable ten-bit chipless RFID tag. Furthermore, a novel RFID tag antenna design adopting linearly tapering technique is introduced. It shows 40 % save of conductive ink materials while keeping the same performance for conventional half-wave dipole antennas and meander line antennas. Finally, the paper discusses the future trends of chipless RFID tags in terms of fabrication cost, coding capacity, size, and reconfigurability. We see that, coupled with revolutionary design of low-cost tag antennas, fabrication/reconfiguration by printing techniques, moving to higher frequencies to shrink tag sizes and reduce manufacturing cost, as well as innovation in ID generating circuits to increase coding capacities, will be important research topics towards item-level tracking applications of chipless RFID tags.     

Passive wake-up radios: From devices to applications

Energy efficiency is one of the most important criteria in the design of a wireless sensor network. Sensor nodes are usually battery-powered and thus have very limited lifetime. In this paper, we introduce a novel passive wake-up radio device named WISP-Mote that uses a passive RFID tag as a wake-up receiver for a traditional sensor node. We characterize the WISP-Mote with field tests in different operating environments and present the wake-up probabilities based on the distance between the wake-up transmitter and receiver. We then perform simulations to compare the performance of a network with WISP-Motes and with duty-cycling of the sensor nodes, using the wake-up probabilities measured in our field tests. Additionally, potential applications that can benefit from WISP-Motes are discussed, and the advantages of using WISP-Motes are identified by simulation results based on these application scenarios. Results show that the wake-up radio sensor networks have great potential over duty-cycling approaches for energy efficiency, while providing similar latency and packet delivery performances.     

纸基PVA无芯片RFID湿度传感器

传统湿度传感器制造工艺复杂、需有线连接信号,对此,文中提出一种纸基无芯片射频识别(Radio Frequency Identification, RFID)湿度传感器。为提升传感器谐振特性,选择非对称开口环内部分布式加载金属碎片作为传感器结构,聚乙烯醇(PVA)作为湿敏材料,使用遗传算法和HFSS射频仿真软件来设计并优化传感器结构。以喷墨打印技术制作传感器样品,采用滴涂法在传感器表面分别制备了5%、10%、15%三种质量浓度比的PVA薄膜。湿敏特性仿真及测试结果一致表明：PVA与纸基底协同作用可显著提高传感器灵敏度。随PVA浓度增加灵敏度增加,15%PVA传感器灵敏度最高,高湿灵敏度达到12.22 MHz/%RH,但随PVA浓度增加恢复特性变差,5%PVA湿度传感器具有良好的恢复特性,恢复度达83.87%。通过长期多次实验验证了PVA纸基湿度传感器具有良好的温度稳定性与中长期稳定性。与同类研究成果对比,文中设计在感湿范围及灵敏度方面有优势且制造工艺更简单,为低成本湿度传感器的大规模使用提供了可能。     

Functional antenna integrated with relative humidity sensor using synthesised polyimide for passive RFID sensing

A new type of antenna with an RH (relative humidity) sensing function using a modified polyimide is proposed for passive RFID sensing. Designed to operate at a frequency that depends on the relative humidity level, the proposed antenna is a passive device that physically and functionally combines an antenna with an RH sensor. The compactness and cost-efficiency of the antenna enables it to realise a passive tag of the RFID sensing without an additional sensor component     

基于极点展开法无芯片电子标签的识别与传感

利用极点展法得到的极点与留数,可对无芯片电子标签进行识别与传感.由极点与标签结构成对应关系,利用衰减因子与谐振频率可对标签结构的基本属性进行识别,还可以进一步地感知标签结构的弯曲变形程度;利用留数所含有的信息,可以感知标签结构相对入射波或观测点的空间角度方位信息.通过理论仿真分析,极点与留数不仅可用来识别标签,还可以感知标签结构的其它特性的功能.     

Design rules for chipless RFID tags based on multiple scatterers

In this paper, we present some design rules to create a chipless RFID tag that encodes the information in the frequency domain. Some criterions are introduced to make the best choice concerning the elementary scatterers that act like signal processing antennas. The performance of several scatterers will be compared before a study on the radiating properties of a versatile C-like scatterer. An electrical model as well as a transfer function model is presented to best understand the frequency response of both a single-layer and a grounded scatterer. An example of the design and the optimization of a chipless RFID tag based on the use of multiple scatterers are provided, and the frequency optimization step for each resonant peak will be discussed.     

How Far Are We from Making Metamaterials by Self‐Organization? The Microstructure of Highly Anisotropic Particles with an SRR‐Like Geometry

Metamaterials offer new unusual electromagnetic properties, which have already been demonstrated, and many postulated new functionalities are yet to be realized. Currently, however, metamaterials are mostly limited by narrow band behavior, high losses, and limitation in making genuinely 3D materials. In order to overcome these problems an overlap between metamaterial concepts and materials science is necessary. Engineered self‐organization is presented as a future approach to metamaterial manufacturing. Using directional solidification of eutectics, the first experimental realization of self‐organized particles with a split‐ring resonator‐like cross section is demonstrated. This unusual morphology/microstructure of the eutectic composite has a fractal character. With the use of TEM and XRD the clear influence of the atomic crystal arrangement on the microstructure geometry is presented. The materials obtained present very high anisotropy and can be obtained in large pieces. Metallodielectric structures can be created by etching and filling the space with metal. The next steps in the development of self‐organized materials exhibiting unusual properties are discussed.     

On the detection of chipless RFID through signal space representation

paper presents a novel approach to model and represent chipless radio-frequency identification (RFID) frequency signatures. The approach involves the geometrical representation of chipless RFID frequency signatures in a signal space. A small set of orthonormal basis functions is derived using singular value decomposition in order to represent the 2 ^b possible tag signatures of a b-bit chipless tag. Each tag signature is represented as a point in an L-dimensional signal space, and minimum distance detection is used to extract the information bit sequence of the tag. Detection error probability is also examined through analytical derivations and Monte Carlo simulation. A set of 3-bit tags were fabricated to validate the approach. Experimental results show that the new approach is capable of accurately detecting information contained in chipless RFID tags. This approach offers a solid mathematical framework for developing novel detection methods for chipless tags.     

A 0.6 V and 0.395 pJ/bit nonius TDC for a passive RFID pressure sensor tag

This work presents a nonius time to digital converter (TDC) adapted to a passive RF identification (RFID) pressure sensor tag. The proposed converter exploits the characteristics of time-based sensor interfaces and allows reducing voltage supply and power consumption while maintaining resolution and conversion efficiency. The nonius TDC has been designed and fabricated using the TSMC 90 nm standard CMOS technology. The main blocks of the converter are described and both the resolution adjustment and measurement processes are explained in detail. Measurement results show 10.49 bits of effective resolution for an input time range from 28.19 to 42.93 μs. With a sampling rate of 19 KS/s the converter has a conversion efficiency of 0.395 pJ/bit with a voltage supply of only 0.6 V. This characteristics in the proposed nonius TDC enables an increased reading range of the passive RFID pressure sensor tag.