A Wireless Pressure Sensor Design Using a

Microwave Cavity Resonator

Haitao Cheng*, Siamak Ebadi, and Xun Gong
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
Email: htcheng7@gmail.com, ebadi@ieee.org, xun.gong@ucf.edu

Abstract— A wireless pressure sensor based on a microwave

cavity resonator is proposed herein. A metallic post is located at
the center of the cavity to form an evanescent-mode tunable
resonator and the resonant frequency depends on the air gap
between the cavity cap and the post. When the cavity has a
deformation resulted from external pressure, the resonant
frequency is shifted. A slot antenna is integrated with this
pressure sensor for wireless detection without occupying any
additional volume. Simulation results show that the pressure
sensor operates from 12.55 to 10.50 GHz corresponding to
applied pressure from 0 to 100 psi. This proposed wireless passive Fig. 1. Wireless pressure sensing by using an integrated resonator/antenna.
pressure sensor is suitable for applications where physical
contact or active elements are hard to be implemented. capacitance. The resonant frequency ݂଴ is determined
dominantly by the post capacitance cp, which can be calculated
I. INTRODUCTION as [4]:
The need of implanted wireless passive sensor is growing
ఌబ ௅೛ ௅೛
particularly for applications in which no physical contact or ܿ௣ ൌ (2)
௚
active devices are applicable. Several passive pressure sensors
using microwave resonator have been developed recently [1]-
[3]. Operating at microwave frequencies results in higher A slot is etched on the metal layer of the cavity cap to form
pressure sensitivity. However, in all of these developments, the integrated antenna as shown in Fig. 2. In order to properly
antennas connected to the sensors have a comparable or even design and characterize the structure, two coaxial ports are
larger size, compared with the sensor itself, making the weakly coupled to the cavity. However, these external ports are
wireless sensor system bulky.
This paper presents a microwave passive pressure sensor
with a seamlessly integrated antenna, as shown in Fig. 1. This
Lc
evanescent-mode cavity resonator, loaded with a capacitive
post at the center, is compact [4]. Integration of the slot antenna Slot Lp
antenna Weak
and the resonator provides efficient energy coupling between d coupling
the sensor/antenna and free space [5]. No additional volume is wa coaxial
needed for the antenna and the transition from the antenna to La ports
the sensor. An external interrogator antenna will be used to
send a wideband signal towards the integrated sensor/antenna Cavity Post
and then the resonant frequency of the sensor can be detected
from the reflected signal. (a)

II. DESIGN OF INTEGRATED RESONATOR/ANTENNA Slot antenna

Top silicon t1 Le
The resonant frequency of the presented evanescent-mode g
cavity is tunable by the air gap between the cavity cap and the
h
post. The resonant frequency ݂଴ can be calculated using [4]: Bottom
t2 silicon
ଵ
݂଴ ൌ (1)
ଶగඥ௅ሺ௖೛ ା௖ೝ ሻ (b)

Fig.2. Design of cavity resonator/antenna by coaxial weakly coupling. 3-D (a)

where L is the equivalent inductance of the cavity resonator, cp and sideview (b) of the sensor structure. (Lc = 5 mm, Lp = 2.5 mm, Le = 1 mm,
is the parallel-plate capacitance between the cavity cap and the La = 4.9 mm, Wa = 0.2 mm, d = 0.4 mm, h = 238 µm, g = 12 µm, t1 = t2 = 250
metallic post, and cr represents the remaining fringing µm.)

978-1-4673-0462-7/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE

 -60 -55
100 psi 70 psi
-65 -60 30 psi 0 psi
-70
-65

S21 (dB)
S21 (dB)

-75
-70
-80
-75
-85
-80
-90

-95 -85
10.5 11.0 11.5 12.0 12.5 13.0 10.0 10.5 11.0 11.5 12.0 12.5 13.0
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 3. The cavity resonator/antenna response by weak coupling . Fig. 5. Sesnor responses for succesive external pressure by weak coupling.

for the design purpose only and will not appear in the final
sensor structure as presented in Fig. 2(b). To achieve the
maximum energy coupling from free space to the resonator
through the slot antenna, the unloaded Q factor Qu of the
resonator needs to be equal to the radiation Q factor Qrad of the
slot antenna [5]. The antenna is designed based on the Qu of
195 when the air gap value is g = 10 µm. The slot length La and
position d are analyzed by parametric sweep in the Ansoft High
Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS). During the simulation,
the slot width Wa is fixed to 0.2 mm. Finally, La = 4.5 mm and
d = 0.5 mm are selected to match Qrad with Qu. The simulated
S21 corresponding to the two weakly-coupled coaxial ports is
shown in Fig. 3. From this figure, loaded Q factor QL of 98.4 is
evident, which is consistent with the antenna design with
critical coupling requirement. The designed sensor/antenna has
a compact volume of 7×7×0.75 mm3.
This pressure sensor can be realized by two hermetic
bonded silicon wafers. Wave attenuation is decreased by using
high-resistivity silicon at the top of the cavity. The cavity
bottom can be fabricated by two-step anisotropic etching of
silicon.
III. MECHANICAL SIMULATION
Both sensor top and bottom layers have deflections for an
applied external pressure, which reduce the air gap and the
sensor resonant frequency, accordingly. This mechanical
response can be simulated by ANSYS FEM software. The
maximum deflection appears at the center of the cavity.
Variation of the minimum air gap with external pressure is
12.0
11.5
11.0
10.5
Air gap (µm)
plotted in Fig. 4. The pressure sensitivity can be improved
using thinner top and bottom layers. However, this will also
limit the dynamic range of the sensor. Using the data from Fig.
4, the sensor responses for successive external pressures are
shown in Fig.5. The resonant frequency reduces from 12.55 to
10.50 GHz for the applied pressure ranging from 0 to 100 psi.
This corresponds to a sensitivity of 20 MHz/psi.
IV. CONCLUSION
A wireless passive pressure sensor design is proposed using
an evanescent-mode cavity resonator seamlessly integrated
with a slot antenna at X band. By loading the resonator with a
capacitive post the sensor has high pressure sensitivity. In
addition, the seamlessly integrated antenna results in a compact
size compared with the previously reported solutions. The
proposed technology can have wide usage in implanted
applications in need of low-profile wireless passive pressure
sensors. Future reports will present the wireless measurement
of the device.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors acknowledge the support of this research by
National Science Foundation under Grant ECCS 0823950 and
US Department of Energy under Grant DE-FE0001241.
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