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Toward A Wirelessly Powered On-lens
Intraocular Pressure Monitoring System
Jin-Chern Chiou, Member, IEEE, Shun-Hsi Hsu, Student Member, IEEE, Yu-Te Liao, Member, IEEE,
Yu-Chieh Huang, Student Member, IEEE, Guan-Ting Yeh, Cheng-Kai Kuei, Kai-Shiun Dai

Abstract— This paper presents a wireless on-lens intraocular
pressure monitoring system, comprising a capacitance-to-digital
converter and a wirelessly powered RFID-compatible
communication system, for sensor control and data
communication. The capacitive sensor was embedded on a soft
contact lens of 200 µm thickness using commercially available
bio-compatible lens material, to improve compliance and reduce
user discomfort. The sensor chip was shown to achieve effective
number of bits greater than 10 over a capacitance range up to 50
pF while consuming only 64 µW power. The on-lens capacitive
sensor could detect dielectric variation caused by changes in water
content from a distance of 2 cm by using incident power from an
RFID reader at 20 dBm. The maximum detectable distance was 11
cm with 30 dBm incident RF power. The rise in eye tissue
temperature under 30 dBm RF exposure over an interval of one
second was simulated and found to be less than 0.01 °C.
Index Terms— Capacitance-to-digital converter, capacitive
sensor, UHF RFID Class1 Gen2, soft contact lens
I. INTRODUCTION
G laucoma is one of the major causes of blindness [1]. Most
glaucoma cases in North America and Europe are
associated with a rise in the intraocular pressure (IOP). Clinical
studies have suggested that a 1 mmHg increase in IOP increases
the risk of glaucoma by 11% [1]. Therefore, long-term
monitoring of IOP has become a focus of research recently [2].
The Goldmann method is the standard procedure used for
measuring IOP in clinics; however, it is not portable and is
uncomfortable for the patient [3]. Conventional IOP
measurements using contact or non-contact methods have
failed to provide reliable and repeatable measurements for
prompt detection and daily tracking. Therefore, a continuous
IOP monitoring method for glaucoma patients that offers high
accuracy and reliability is desirable [4]. Some methods have
been proposed for continuous and long-term IOP monitoring
using implantable pressure sensors [5][6][7] or eye curvature
monitoring [8][9]. Pressure sensor implants are invasive and
require surgery, and this reduces patients’ compliance. Such
implants usually require high incident wireless power, which
may increase the temperature of the eye tissues. The power
consumption of all active implantable IOP monitoring devices
[5][6][7] exceeds 1 mW. These systems require higher incident
RF power, therefore potentially giving rise to excessive heating
of the eye tissue under RF exposure. The wireless transmitter in
1
IOP Readout System On-Lens System
TX antenna Power
Signal
Command Sensor
Data
Tag IC Rx Antenna
RFID Reader
Components
Fig. 1. Proposed IOP monitoring system.
the sensor system usually consumes maximum power. To
reduce the power required for wireless communication, load
modulation techniques are used, since they do not require a
power-hungry local oscillator or power amplifier.
This paper presents an integrated wireless on-lens IOP
monitoring system, as shown in Fig. 1, comprising an on-lens
integrated capacitive sensor, a readout circuitry, and an
RFID-compatible communication system. The proposed sensor
tag can communicate with an on-glass reader and measure the
on-lens capacitance changes through the
microelectromechanical system (MEMS) capacitive sensor.
In our previous work, we demonstrated an MEMS capacitive
pressure sensor on a contact lens for long-term IOP monitoring
[10][11]. A lens center thickness of 200 µm was used in this
study to improve patient comfort and compliance [12]. After
modification, the chip could achieve an effective number of bits
(ENOB) greater than 10 over a capacitor range up to 50 pF.
In this paper, we describe the design methodology for the
on-lens receiving antenna and the on-glass transmitting antenna
and demonstrate a wirelessly powered on-lens IOP monitoring
system using fabricated antennas. We discuss the relevant
safety regulations and the impacts on eye tissues of
electromagnetic (EM) wave exposure. The rest of the paper is
organized as follows. Section II reviews the basic power
transfer concepts and antenna design of our on-lens IOP
monitoring system. Section III describes the sensor readout
circuitry of the on-lens sensing devices. Section IV presents the
results of experimental investigations of the monitoring system.
Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section V.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
One of the most critical challenges facing an on-lens IOP
monitoring device is limiting the energy source needed to
sustain long-term sensing. Supplying the on-lens device with
sufficient energy over a long lifetime is challenging [13]. To
avoid the need for batteries on the lens, the sensor tag is
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D Γreader
r
Near Field
Far Field
(a)
Fig. 2. (a) Diagram of the near-field and far-field regions (r =λ/2π), (b) Coupling model of a general RFID system.
wirelessly powered by an external EM energy source. With the
help of wireless monitoring, several physiological parameters,
such as blood pressure, body temperature, respiration rate, and
blood oxygen saturation, can be wirelessly recorded [14][15].
Besides in-hospital use, wireless monitoring is applicable for
use in home care or remote care monitoring wherein recorded
health data can be transmitted using telecommunication
technology [16][17]. With these advanced technologies,
medical monitoring can improve patient care, improve
understanding of disease process and decrease care cost. RFID
sensor networks (RSNs), powered by an RFID reader and
communicating via the RFID protocol, provide an attractive
approach to wireless environmental monitoring. The major
challenges in RSNs application are the intermittent power when
sensing and the asymmetric sensing protocols [18]. In this
study, the EPCGlobal C1G2 protocol with user command was
used for RSNs at the cost of communication efficiency to
overcome the intermittent power during sensing. Current
commercially available reader hardware and equipment can be
used with this topology.
Due to the need to restrict the area of the components to
avoid vision blockage, a ring-type geometry was used in the
sensor and antenna design. To reduce contact lens discomfort,
the lens thickness should be close to that of commercial
products. This makes it difficult to locate the matching and
tuning components on the lens. A single-turn loop antenna for
UHF operation can be implemented on the contact lens under
these constraints.
Previous research has suggested that the implant loss inside
the eyes is about 30 dB [19][20][21]. The energy needed for
sensing is only 0 dBm at the receiving side using an implanted
antenna if the maximum regulated RF power is 30 dBm [22].
Some studies [23][24] have demonstrated the fabrication of an
antenna onto contact lenses and the harvesting of RF energy. In
addition, the safety of long-term RF exposure is addressed in
IEEE Std C95.1-2005 [25], which regulates the power exposure
of human organs. To meet the regulations, the eye temperature
must be kept below the temperature threshold of 41°C and the
temperature difference should be less than 1°C under RF
exposure to prevent cataract formation [25].
To sustain long-term bio-signal acquisition using low RF
power, the power consumption of the wireless monitoring
system should be minimized. Alongside path and tissue losses,
the relative location of the power transmitter (on the glasses)
and receiver (on the lens) affects the amount of power received,
2
Preader 2-Port Network Pchip
Coupling
Coefficient C Γchip
Reader Port 1 Port 2 Tag Chip
ρreader ρchip
Path Gain PG (S21)
(b)
especially for highly oriented small-size antennas. The
variation in energy transmission gain due to misalignment
between the receiving and transmitting antennas should also be
investigated.
A. Antenna Coupling and Power Scheme Optimization
The basic antenna design theory is reviewed before
introducing our antenna design and power optimization scheme.
According to [26], the power absorbed by an RFID tag chip
(Pchip) from the power transmitted by the reader (Preader) can be
expressed as
Pchip  Preader  PG (1)
PG  C   reader  chip (2)
where PG is the energy transmission gain from a reader to a tag,
C is the antenna coupling coefficient. ρreader and ρchip are the
impedance matching coefficients at the reader and the tag,
respectively.
For an antenna with a size comparable to the wavelength of
the transmitting/receiving signals, the approximate boundary (r)
between the far-field and the near-field region is given by 2D2/λ,
where D is the maximum transmitting antenna dimension and
λ is the wavelength [26]. A conceptual diagram of the near and
far fields is shown in Fig. 2(a). In our approach, the distance
between the glass and the contact lens is about 2 cm, which is
much smaller than the 860–960 MHz wavelength (λ) of the
ultra-high-frequency RFID signal. The communication region
is therefore in the near field. The energy transfer between the
reader and the tag antennas can be modeled using the two-port
network shown in Fig. 2(b). |S21| represents the path gain
between the transmitting and receiving antennas. The coupling
between the antennas in the near-field region affects not only
antenna impedance but also electrical or magnetic field
distribution. Thus, the antenna performance becomes position-
and orientation-dependent. In the near field, antennas are
magnetically inductive coupled or electrically capacitive
coupled by the tangential and radial magnetic or electric field
created between them [26]. In the case of a small receiving
antenna, the magnetic field created by the reader antenna is not
perturbed by the tag. The coupling behavior between the reader
and the tag antenna is similar to that of an inductively coupled
transformer, and C can be modeled as
C  f 2 N 2 S 2 B 2 (3)
where f is the frequency, N is the number of coil turns, S is the
overlapped cross-section area of the coils, B is the magnetic
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Outer Loop : 57mm Antenna Impedance

Antenna Impedance Return Loss
Return Loss
0
Re(Z)
1000 S11

Impedance (Ohm) (Ω)

Im(Z)
-5

S11 (dB)
500

Impedance
-10

S11 (dB)
Inner Loop : 49mm
0 -15

-20
-500

-25
800 900 1000 1100 1200 800 900 1000 1100 1200
frequency (MHz) frequency (MHz)
Frequency (MHz) Frequency (MHz)
(a) (b) (c)
Fig. 3. (a) Structure of the transmitting antenna, (b) simulated antenna impedance, (c) simulated return loss.

2 cm 2 cm

8 cm 8 cm

6.8 cm 6.8 cm

(a) (b)
Fig. 4. (a) Simulated transmitting magnetic field of a simple loop antenna, (b) improved uniformity of transmitting magnetic field with the segmented loop
technique.

field at the tag location created by the reader antenna, and α is
the misalignment loss [26].
While the magnetic field becomes strong in the near zone,
the transmitting and receiving antennas in an inductively
coupled system are designed in the form of a loop to maximize
the energy transferred through magnetic coupling [27]. Due to
the areal constraints on a contact lens, the degrees of freedom of
C are limited. To maximize the energy received at the tag side,
the impedance matching coefficients, ρreader and ρchip, should be
improved. This paper presents an optimization procedure for a
TX-RX antenna co-design under this size constraint.
B. Transmitting Antenna Design
To match the geometries of the glass and contact lenses, loop
antennas were adopted on both receiving and transmitting sides.
If the loop perimeter is comparable to the wavelength of the
operating frequency, the current distribution shifts to produce a
change in the sign of the current flow, and the antennas produce
a relatively small magnetic field on the vertical axis [28]. In our
design, the antenna perimeter was approximately 78.5 mm and
the wavelength was approximately 324 mm at 925 MHz. Thus,
the transmitting antenna can be considered a small loop antenna.
The constant current phase along the loop creates a strong
near-field magnetic field, increasing the energy transmission in
a focused direction. Using λ/2π to derive the boundary gives a
boundary of between 5.5 and 4.9 cm at 860–960 MHz, and
hence, our system operates mainly in the near field.
To further improve power transfer, a uniform magnetic
distribution is required between the transmitting and receiving
antennas. A segmented antenna with a gap between the two
loops was used to create a uniform magnetic field distribution
[28], and an additional parallel capacitor was added to shift the
resonant frequency to within the desired band (centered at 925
MHz). In addition, to reduce the power reflection between the
RFID reader and the antenna, the output impedance of the
transmitting antenna was matched to the 50 Ω impedance of the
test instrument.
A prototype of the transmitting antenna is shown in Fig. 3(a),
and the simulation results are shown in Figs. 3(b) and 3(c). At
925 MHz, the antenna impedance was 46 - j3.7 Ω; the return
loss (|S11|) was -21 dB and its -10 dB bandwidth was 21 MHz.
The antenna coupling coefficient is proportional to the
magnetic field. The uniform field distribution enhances energy
transmission and provides robust operation against shifts in the
relative location and alignment of the contact lens and the glass
caused by eye movement and blinking. Figs. 4(a) and 4(b) show
the simulated magnetic field distribution of a single-loop
antenna and the proposed segmented loop antenna. The field
magnitude at a distance of 2 cm was approximately 3.52 A/m.
The magnetic field strength and uniformity were improved by
around 34 dB compared with a simple-loop antenna under the
same size constraints.
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Antenna
Antenna Impedance
Impedance Return Loss
Lens 150 0
Return Loss

Re(Z) S11
Im(Z)

(Ω)
Impedance (Ohm)
100 -5

(dB)
Impedance
12.1mm

S11 (dB)
S11
50 -10

0 -15
Sensor 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
Antenna frequency (GHz)
Frequency (GHz) frequency (GHz)
Frequency (GHz)
(a) (b) (c)
Fig. 5. (a) Geometry of the receiving antenna; (b) simulated results of the antenna impedance; and (c) simulated results of |S11|.

Contact Lens Sensor

Corneal Path Gain
Iris TX Antenna -15
Anterior Posterior
chamber Lens 10mm
chamber -20 20mm

(dB)
Gain(dB)
Ciliary Distance between 30mm
Sclera Muscle Power Tx and Rx -25

Path Gain
Input
-30

Path
Vitreous
Eye
Humor -35
Model

-40
0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
Frequency (GHz)
(a) (b) (c)
Fig. 6. (a) Eye model for SAR simulation; (b) configuration of simulation; and (c) simulated |S21| at different distances.

focus of the eye. In addition, the capacitive sensor was placed

TABLE I
near the inner side of the antenna to co-simulate the
TISSUE PROPERTIES [29]
Dielectric cross-coupling effects. Due to the size constraint, no passive
Properties at Thermal Properties of tissues impedance matching components were built into the lens. The
Tissue 900MHz
σ ρ k c
fixed dimensions of the contact lens make significant
εr improvement in the coupling coefficient difficult, and the
(S/m) (kg/m3) (W/m °C) (J/kg °C)
Cornea 52.0 1.85 1050 0.58 4178 power efficiency was instead maximized by improving the
Anterior impedance matching coefficient, ρchip. Unlike the transmitting
73.0 1.97 996 0.58 3997
chamber antenna, the receiving antenna should be conjugate-matched to
Lens 51.3 0.89 1000 0.4 3000 the sensor chip impedance of about 25 - j45 Ω at an incident
Posterior power range of 0–3 dBm. A cover layer was placed on the
73.0 1.97 996 0.58 3997
chamber receiving antenna to model the contact lens materials in the
Vitreous simulation. Impedance matching between the RFID sensor chip
74.3 1.97 1100 0.603 4178
humor
and antenna was achieved using the antenna profile (Fig. 5(a))
Sclera 52.1 1.22 1050 1.0042 3180
by changing the segment length of the two wires and gap
Iris 52.1 1.22 1050 1.0042 3180 spacing between them. The simulated results for the antenna
impedance and reflection (|S11|) of the antenna prototype are
C. Receiving Antenna on the Contact Lens shown in Figs. 5(b) and 5(c), respectively.
For an on-lens IOP monitoring system, the antenna size D. Antenna Coupling and Specific Adsorption Rate
should be kept within an area of 1.6 cm2 to fit within a standard Simulation
contact lens. In contrast with the transmitting antenna, the Although the safety standards set limits in terms of the
receiving loop suffers great losses from the eye tissue substrate. maximum specific absorption rate (SAR), no limits are set on
Therefore, the cornea layer and lens material should be taken the maximum temperature increase in the eye caused by EM
into account in the simulation. energy absorption, although this is one of the dominant factors
As with the transmitting antenna, the receiving antenna inducing adverse physiological effects [29]. An eye model with
design starts from a simple loop with the geometry constraints seven tissues, shown in Fig. 6(a), was used to investigate the
imposed by the contact lens. Fig. 5(a) shows the structure of the tissue influence and the SAR. Using the reported tissue thermal
on-lens antenna and the capacitive sensor. A 10-mm diameter properties [29], the temperature increase under EM wave
was used for the receiving antenna to stop it from impeding the exposure could also be investigated with this model. Table I
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Wireless Contact Lens Device for IOP Monitoring

Peak : 22.6W/kg Peak : 5.82W/kg Sensor Chip
RFID Front End

Rectifier
Bandgap Sensor

Limiter
Bias Readout
Regulator Circuitry

d=10 mm d=20 mm Capacitive

Sensor
Envelop Detector Demodulator
Tag
Peak : 2.35W/kg Peak : 1.60W/kg Antenna COMP

Digital
Processor
Modulator
CMOD

DOUT Power-On
OSC
Reset
d=30 mm d=40 mm
Fig. 7. Simulated SAR under 30 dBm RF power.
Fig. 8. Proposed sensor chip architecture.
summarizes the electrical and thermal characteristics of the
VREF CFB
tissues [29]. Fig. 6(b) shows the configuration for antenna +
- +
coupling and SAR simulation. CSENOR
Φ1 - Φ2
From (2), the power transmission between the transmitting VP(n)
antenna and the receiving antenna is determined by C, ρchip and VREF D Q Q

ρreader. Once the impedances are matched (ρchip = ρreader = 1) at If Q is L, Φ1 VREF

CLK Clk

both transmitter and receiver sides, C can be represented by |S21| VREF

Φ2 Q

of the two-port network. Fig. 6(c) shows the simulated |S21| If Q is H, Φ1 -

between the on-board transmitting antenna and the on-lens +
CREF
Φ2
receiving antenna at different distances. VREF
If Q is H, Φ1
For safety reasons, the rise in eye temperature under RF
exposure should be kept below 1°C [25]. The temperature VREF

increase in the eye tissue under short-term EM exposure can be If Q is L, Φ1

obtained by linear approximation of the bio-heat equation [29]:
T
SAR  c (4)
t
where c is the heat capacity of the tissue, ΔT is the temperature
change, and Δt is the exposure time. Fig. 7 shows the simulated
1g-SAR of the proposed IOP monitoring system at different
distances when using 30 dBm RF power. The maximum RF
power level needed to meet 1.6 Kg/W FCC regulations are 18
dBm at a distance of 10 mm and 24 dBm at 20 mm. The
maximum temperature increases after one second of 30 dBm
EM exposure were only 0.008°C at 10 mm and 0.002°C at 20
mm. The locations on the lens model are shown in Fig. 6(a).
The simulation results suggest that the proposed system can
meet the safety regulations with a variable operating distance
and at different RF power levels.
Fig. 9. Capacitance-to-digital converter.
information. In this design, a capacitive sensor is employed for
detecting the eye curvature changes due to IOP deviations. Fig.
9 shows a schematic of the capacitance-to-digital converter
(CDC), which is modified from that reported in a previous
study [11]. The recorded bit density of the CDC output bit
stream represents the ratio between the sensing capacitor and
the on-chip reference capacitor. To improve the linearity and
sensitivity of the readout circuitry, the configurations of the
on-chip reference capacitor and the off-chip sensor capacitor
were exchanged. Using the on-chip 50 pF reference capacitor,
the detectable sensor capacitance range was between 1 pF and
50 pF. Detailed descriptions of the other blocks can be found in
our previous work [11].

III. DESIGN OF THE ON-LENS SENSOR SYSTEM
The sensor was placed on the inner area of the contact lens
and the antenna on the outside to maximize the effective area
and efficiency. The capacitance change due to dielectric
variation caused by differences in water content was used to
verify the functionality of the sensor readout circuitry. Detailed
descriptions of sensor fabrication can be found in our previous
work [10].
Fig. 8 shows the architecture of the proposed sensor chip.
The sensor chip includes the analog front-end circuits for power
scavenging and data demodulation, a digital processor for
RFID-protocol format generation and sensing information
processing, and a sensor readout circuitry to acquire the sensor
IV. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
The experimental results for the IOP monitoring system,
including the sensor IC and the path gain between the
transmitting and receiving antennas, are discussed in this
section.
A. RFID Front End Performance
Fig. 10 shows the chip micrograph of the proposed sensor IC.
The chip was implemented using 0.18 μm CMOS technology.
The chip size with I/O pads was 1 mm × 1.58 mm.
The chip was measured using standard RFID testing
equipment (CISC Xplorer) [30], which allows programming
instructions to be sent to the RFID tags using standard RFID
commands or user-defined commands, following the protocol
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1580um RF to Wireless
DC Conversion
Harvesting

RF-
5
12%
0.12

IOPADs for Verification

DC Voltage Generated (V)

4
10%
0.1

DC Voltage Generated (V)

Sensor Readout
Sensor Input
Capacitive

1000um
Circuit

PCE (%)
Analog/RF 3

PCE (%)
8%
0.08
Front End
6%
0.06
2
Digital 4%
0.04
Processor RF+ 1
2%
0.02
-6 -4 -2
Fig. 10. Die photo of the proposed sensor IC. -6 -5 -4 -2 00 22 44 5 66 88 10
10
10 12
12
RF Input Power (dBm)
RF Input Power (dBm)
Fig. 12. Measured power conversion efficiency
-6

Rx
(dBm)
Power(dBm)

-7
Turn-on Power

Distance
-8
Turn-on

-9
Measured
after S11 calibration
-10
800 850 900 950
Frequency
Frequency(MHz)
(MHz)
Fig. 11. Measured turn-on power of the proposed IOP sensor system.
definition.
To eliminate reflection losses from impedance mismatches
and to estimate the minimum input power needed to activate the
sensor IC, the correction technique described in [31] was used.
The turn-on power can be calculated as
P system, the receiving antenna, shown in Fig. 11, was first
Pturnon  Pchip  measured2 (5)
1  S11
With the aid of CISC Xplorer calibration, the turn-on power
characteristics can be measured and exported through CISC
Xplorer GUI interfaces [30]. In the frequency range of 800
MHz to 1 GHz, the measured average turn-on power of the
sensor IC was -9.6 dBm at 820 MHz and -8.7 dBm at 925 MHz.
Fig. 11 shows the measured sensitivity before and after
calibration, which is equivalent to Pchip in (1). Verification by a
Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC-16) including the tag
response to acknowledge (ACK) and read command was used
as the command sequence for turn-on power measurement [30].
The power consumption of the proposed sensor IC with CDC
activated was around 64 µW, and the chip sensitivity with CDC
activated was close to 0 dBm at 925 MHz.
Continuous wave (CW) signal from CISC RFID Xplorer was
directly connected to RF input of the proposed sensor IC for
measurement purposes. The voltage measured at limiter’s
output was used as DC voltage generated, and the RF input
power level between −5 dBm to 10 dBm was chosen for
Fig. 13. Path gain experimental setup.
1000 conversion efficiency measurement. The measurement results
shown in Fig. 12 suggest that the rectifier with a RF input level
of 1.74 mW (2.4 dBm) has power conversion efficiency (PCE)
of 11.2% and produces 3.13 V across a 50-kΩ load, which is
sufficient for circuit operations of proposed sensor IC.
B. Antenna Coupling and Path Gain Performance
To verify the functionality and flexibility of the overall
implemented on a PCB. Because the dielectric constants of
tissues and lens materials are much higher than those of a PCB,
water was dropped onto the PCB to emulate the dielectric
constant in the real operating environment.
Fig. 13 shows a photograph of the experimental setup for
measuring path gain. Measurement of an on-board antenna was
performed to first verify the design and then to extract the
design parameters for calibration and comparison with the
on-lens antenna. To study the magnetic field distribution in the
horizontal direction and understand the energy transmission
margin when misalignment between the receiving and
transmitting antennas occurred, the transmitting antenna was
partitioned into a 5×5 matrix. In the first measurement, the
distance between the receiving antenna and the center of the
transmitting antenna was 2 cm. The minimum turn-on power
(the minimum reader power to communicate successfully with
the sensor tag), as measured by CISC RFID Explorer, is
equivalent to Preader in (1). The path gain, defined as |S21|
between the receiving and transmitting antennas, can be
calculated from (1) with the available Preader and Pchip. Fig. 14
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Antenna Coupling Gain TABLE II

PERFORMANCE COMPARISONS OF ANTENNA DESIGN
-5 Simulated PG Max Path RF
Type Freq
Measured PG Distance Gain Power
-10
S21 (dB) (dB)

[23] Wearable 1.8 GHz 15 cm N/A 40 dBm

-15 −29 dB
[24] Wearable 3 GHz 4 cm 32 dBm
at 4 cm
Path Gain

-20 [19] Implantable 915 MHz 4.1 cm N/A 32 dBm

-25 2.45 −28 dB
[21] Implantable 2.5 cm N/A
GHz at 2 cm
-30 This −12.5 dB
Wearable 860 MHz 11 cm 30 dBm
Work at 2 cm
-35

-40 Readout
Readoutcircuitry measurements
Circuitry Measurement
20 40 60 80 100
0.6 12
12
Distance (mm)
distance (mm)

Fig. 14. Measured path gain at 860 MHz.

Bit Density
11.5
11.5

0.4
0.4

ENOB
RecordedDOUT

ENOB
1111

0.2
0.2
10.5
10.5

00 10
10
55 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
00 10
10 15 20
20 25 30
30 35 40
40 45 50
50
capacitance (pF)
Capacitance (pF)
(a) (b) Fig. 16. Measured readout circuitry characteristics.

technologies of comparable size.

(c)
Fig. 15. Measured turn-on power (dBm) of the sensor IC at (a) 2 cm, (b) 6
cm, (c) 8 cm, (d) 11 cm.
compares the measured and simulated path gains. The PG
difference between the simulation and measurement results is
due to deviations in the mismatch of ρreader and ρchip, which were
assumed to be 1 in the simulation [27].
To test the magnetic field distribution, the receiving antenna
was placed at different distances from the transmitting antenna
and the minimum turn-on power Preader was measured. In
addition, at each distance, measurements were repeated at
different locations to emulate changes in the relative location of
the glass and the contact lens caused by eye movement and
blinking. Fig. 15 shows the measured results of the turn-on
power at communication distances 2–11 cm. To meet the RF
transmitting regulations, the maximum reader power was
limited to 30 dBm [22]. The maximum detectable range under a
30 dBm RF input was from 11 cm when CDC was not activated
to 6 cm with CDC activated. Table II compares the
performance of the proposed antenna design and previous
C. Capacitive Sensor Interface Measurement
To confirm the sensor readout circuitry characteristics, the
chip was connected to commercial capacitors ranging from 2.5
pF to 50 pF for static capacitance conversion testing. The
sensor tag was wirelessly powered by 20 dBm incident RF
power from the RFID reader at a distance of 2 cm. To evaluate
the CDC conversion, the ENOB calculation defined in [32] was
used. The results for static conversion from 2.5 pF to 50 pF by
(d) the commercial capacitors in the proposed sensor tag system
are shown in Fig. 16. The results suggest that the sensor tag can
achieve ENOBs greater than 10 bit up to a 50 pF capacitance
range and with good linearity (R2 = 0.998).
D. Wireless On-lens Capacitive Sensor System Measurement
To verify the functionality of the proposed sensor system, the
chip was connected to an on-lens capacitive sensor. The sensor
tag and RFID reader were placed at a distance of 2 cm.
Dielectric variation induced by the water content of the contact
lens affects the capacitance of the on-lens sensor. The antenna
on the PCB was of a similar size to those of the receiving and
transmitting antennas on the contact lens and the eyeglass,
respectively. Fifteen microlitres of water, controlled by a
syringe pump, was dropped onto the on-lens sensor to induce
the capacitance change. Fig. 17 shows the measurement setup.
The dielectric capacity increased as the water content increased,
and vice versa. The recorded capacitance readout increased
when the water was dropped onto the lens. Fig. 18 shows that
the proposed sensor tag system was able to sense and record
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TABLE III
PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF IOP MONITORING SYSTEMS
CISC RFID Xplorer Syringe Pump
[5] [6] [7] This work
Type Implantable Implantable Implantable Wearable
Capacitive Comm. Load Load
Sensor Active Active
Sensor Tag Tech Modulation Modulation
System 570–590
Freq. 2.5 GHz 13.56 MHz 860 MHz
Reader MHz
Antenna Capacitor Power 1.4 mW 45.7 mW 1.2 mW 64 μW
Input
Comm.
N/A 10 cm 4 cm 2 cm
Distance
Sensor
Temperature Capacitive Capacitive Resistive Capacitive
Type
Display
Sensor
5.3–5.75 pF N/A 5–50 KΩ 2.5–50 pF
Range
ENOBs N/A N/A 8 10
Fig. 17. Photograph of the RFID sensor system testing with the on-lens
capacitive sensor. Area 0.5 mm 2
3 mm 2
2 mm 2
1.58 mm2
Comm.
Cpacitance vs Time N/A N/A ISO-15693 EPC C1G2
Capacitance vs Time Protocol

Capacitance incident RF power, and a maximum detectable distance of 11

44
cm was recorded under 30-dBm incident RF power at a UHF
RFID frequency of 860 MHz. Our design has low power
(pF)
Capacitance (pF)

43 consumption, is fully integrated onto contact lens material

using a standard sandwich manufacturing process, and uses
Capacitance

42 RFID-compatible communication for sensor control and data

41
Onset of water dropping
40
0 1000 2000 3000 4000
Time (sec)
Time (sec)
Fig. 18. Measured capacitance readouts of fluid injections with a period
of 600 s.
each water drop. Table III compares the results with those of
state-of-the-art IOP monitoring systems. Our design achieved a
power consumption of only 64 μW and used RFID-compatible
communication for sensor control and data communication.
V. CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION
In this paper, a wirelessly powered on-lens system was
proposed for non-invasive, long-term IOP monitoring. The
system comprised an energy transmitter, antennas, and on-lens
sensing device. The proposed system is compatible with the
commercial Gen2 RFID system, thus reducing the need for
additional firmware and reader hardware design. The proposed
monitoring system can be wirelessly powered, is able to
communicate with RFID-compatible equipment, and
demonstrated the capability to perform measurement using the
on-lens capacitive sensor. As the on-lens sensor uses
commercially available bio-compatible lens materials with a
standard 200 µm thickness, discomfort is reduced and
compliance is increased. The SAR and temperature rise under
EM exposure was investigated using an eye model and by
linear approximation of the bio-heat equation. A successful
sensor readout distance of 2 cm was achieved under 20-dBm
communication. To further reduce discomfort and to prepare
our proposed system for clinical trials, in a future study, it will
be fully integrated onto a contact lens with hydroxyethyl
methacrylate hydrogel.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
5000 6000
This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Science
and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. (under Contract Number:
MOST 104-2220-E-039-001 and MOST 103-2221-E-009-192
-MY3). The authors would like to thank National Chip
Implementation Center for chip fabrication. The authors
express their gratitude to CISC Semiconductor for
work-specific technical assistance for the CISC RFID Xplorer.
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