A present challenge in structural health monitoring consists in the detection, localization, and quantification of small damage (e.g., small cracks) within large structures, such as bridges and buildings. Existing sensing solutions have several limitations, the most important being those related to the extent of spatial coverage by sensors and power supply. In this work, we will present proof-of-concept research for sub-millimeter displacement measurement using novel embeddable passive wireless radio frequency (RF) sensors. The novel sensors estimate relative displacement from phase shifts in the transmitted RF signal. The proposed system represents a novel paradigm in wireless sensing in structural health monitoring, as the wireless sensors are battery-less and will be deployed in a form of densely populated 3D network embedded within large volume of material.
Total knee replacement (TKR) surgeries have been increasing tremendously in the past few years particularly among active young people and elderly people suffering from knee pain. Hence, continuous monitoring of the load on the knee after the knee surgery is highly desirable for designing an efficient and more functional smart knee implant. In this paper, we demonstrate a smart knee implant system which consists of a triboelectric harvester and a front-end electronic system which continuously monitors the load on the knee by relying only on the power harvested by the triboelectric harvester. The TKR system consists of the femoral, tibial tray, and the ultra high mechanical polyethylene (UHMWPE) bearing parts. The designed triboelectric harvesters are placed between the tibial tray and the UHMWPE bearing for perfect load monitoring. The frontend electronic system is placed on the tibial tray to be powered by the harvester. The triboelectric harvester produces an AC signal which is processed using our proposed frontend electronic system to monitor the load on the knee. For instance, at a knee cyclic load of around 230 N, the harvester produces 6.5 μW power and 18 V RMS signal at a frequency of 1 Hz. The frontend electronic system consists of a LC filter to process the high voltages from the harvester, a rectifier to convert the AC signal into a DC signal, a regulator to convert this DC signal into a stabilized and ripple free DC signal to provide biasing to the final stage, Delta-Sigma ADC, which finally converts the analog signal into digital bits. The power consumption of the proposed design is approximately 5 uW. According to the proposed design, monitoring the load several times a day is feasible by relying only on the harvested power. The prototype of the proposed system has been fabricated on a printed circuit board (PCB) and tested with the designed harvester. The test results demonstrate that triboelectric energy harvesting is a promising technique for self-monitoring the load inside knee implants. Through this research, the knee implants could be improved and failures can be detected at an early stage.
The desire for persistent, long term surveillance and covertness places severe constraints on the power consumption of a sensor node. To achieve the desired endurance while minimizing the size of the node, it is imperative to use application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that deliver the required performance with maximal power efficiency while minimizing the amount of communication bandwidth needed. This paper reviews our ongoing effort to integrate several micropower devices for low-power wake-up detection, blind source separation and localization and pattern classification, and demonstrate the utility of the system in relevant surveillance applications. The capabilities of each module are presented in detail along with performance statistics measured during recent experiments.
Simultaneous mapping of multiple electrical or chemical properties of
neural activity facilitates understanding neurological phenomena and
their underlying mechanisms. We present a track-and-hold potentiostat
performing simultaneous acquisition of 16 independent channels of
current ranging five orders of magnitude in dynamic range over four
scales down to hundreds of picoamperes. Sampling rate ranges from DC
to 200KHz. The system features programmable current gain control,
configurable anti-aliasing log-domain filter, triggered current
integration and provides differential output ready for asynchronous
external analog-to-digital conversion over a compressed dynamic range.
We present system description, circuit implementation and experimental
results of real-time neurotransmitter concentration measurements from
the 16-channel prototype fabricated in a 1.2 micron CMOS process.
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