UNIT 1

Radiant Thermal Sensors

• The interest of the market devices for safety and security has rapidly grown over the
last few years.
• In particular, the use of radiofrequency (RF) technology for contact-less sensing has
been promoted largely into several research projects.
• Body temperature is usually captured by means of thermal sensors placed in direct
contact with skin.
• Skin temperature is strongly dependent on the body site and it is sensitive to local
increasing of blood circulation.
• Reference body temperature, indeed, should be internal.
• Often skin contact with thermal sensors could be difficult and obtrusive,
therefore radiant technology is preferred.
• The state of the art on radiant thermal sensors covers several high-potential
commercial products.
• Meridian Medical Systems is aiming at fabricating a radiometer as a
Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) capable of detecting
temperature of the heart. Although their research aims at implementing
microwave radiometers for medical imaging, it seems they use a traditional
approach based on MIC/MMIC.
• The radiometer exists from a long time, and their approach using hybrid
components is well known.
• Even though MMIC can reach good performance, their level of integration
is limited traditionally to the analogy – RF part only.
• Thermal stabilization and calibration circuits need to be implemented by
means of external circuitry, resulting in bulky and expensive implementations
inadequate for the mass-market.
• In fact, the system-on-chip implementation proposed in CMOS technology
aims at implementing efficiently on the same die both the analog-RF and the
digital calibration circuits.
• Tyco electronics is developing a 24GHz UWB radar sensor in MIC
technology for short-range applications.
• Moreover, this device is targeted at general purpose applications (i.e. military,
collision avoidance short-range automotive, etc.) and therefore only
marginally related with our specific target.
• Demonstration of world's first wearable 3D body motion ...

• https://www.xsens.com › press-releases › demonstration-worlds-first-

wearable-3d-body-...
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKJFIzDfUNE
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5ZBUNqx2yI
 CMOS – Based Biosensors
• CMOS is the dominant semiconductor technology for fabrication of modern
microelectronic components such as microprocessors, memories and
Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) on a silicon through a
defined sequence of material deposition, lithography and etching.
• CMOS technology has transformed the electronics industry with a seemingly
undiminishing ability to integrate more and more uniform devices of ever-
decreasing dimensions onto a single silicon wafer.
 Unit II
Signal Processing
Wearability Issues
 Design for wearable BSNs focuses on specific and important issues for
developing wearable computing systems that take into account the physical
shape of the sensors and their active relationship with the human form.
 In this section, we have outlined several design guidelines for the creation of
wearable BSNs.
 Design for wearability requires unobtrusive sensor node placement on the
human body based on application-specific criteria
• Design for wearability requires unobtrusive sensor node placement on the
human body based on application-specific criteria

• Functionality criteria constrains node placement to regions where relevant

data can be sensed
• The number of nodes required to capture all relevant data can vary based on
the quality of information sensed at individual locations.
• Convenience criteria include: (1) physical interference with movement, (2)
difficulty in removing and placing nodes, (3) social and fashion concerns, (4)
frequency and difficulty of maintenance (charging and cleaning) [2].
• For example, in continuous healthcare monitoring, patients will be expected
to charge the sensors or replace the batteries on a regular basis, as they do
with cell phones and other electronics
• For example, in continuous healthcare monitoring, patients will be expected
to charge the sensors or replace the batteries on a regular basis, as they do
with cell phones and other electronics.
• However, the frequent need to charge and the bulk of the battery can
frustrate the users, causing them to no longer wear the sensors.
• Furthermore, batteries are the heaviest component in the system. By
decreasing power usage, the size and weight of each sensor node can
decrease, thus increasing patient comfort and device wearability
• This makes energy usage a primary constraint in designing BSNs, limiting
everything from data sensing rates and link bandwidth, to node size and
weight.
• Thus, one of the important goals in designing BSNs is to minimize energy
consumption while preserving an acceptable quality of service.
• Energy consumption can be decreased by lower sampling frequency,
decreasing processing power, and simplifying signal processing. Another
effective technique is deactivating nodes that are unnecessary for specific
tasks