Sensors incorporated in RFID systems are important in several industrial, consumer and logistics applications: verification of the environmental conditions during transport or storage, checking on indoor and outdoor environments, monitoring the state of a product in food and health care, detecting whether a product was tampered with, and protecting workers in hazardous environments.
RFID sensors or wireless sensors developed at Imego are ASIC sensors and are also compatible with both active and passive RFID technology, depending on the application. Our strategy is to have low-power microsensors that are essential for maximum wireless range and remote energy supply. This can be achieved with capacitive sensors that use no power when the tag is not in communication with the reader and even then consume very little energy.
The detection part of our wireless sensors is fairly generic, so similar detection techniques can be used to sense a variety of parameters. Our strategy is to use simple batch processing and miniaturization to provide low-cost, low-power and repeatable sensor characteristics and performance.
The sensors can be customized depending on:
- The power/current available for the readout chip
- The control signals required
- The type of interface signal between the generic interface and the sensor chip (voltage, time, frequency)
- The dynamic range
Health care
Verification of the environmental conditions during transport or storage of medicine or tissues/organs (T, pH, conductivity, humidity, different gases such as volatile organic compounds in air, etc); monitoring of patient breath.
Food
Food monitoring throughout the logistic chain, i.e., the food quality during transport, storage and sale (T, pH, conductivity, humidity, different gases).
Physical sensors
Monitoring indoor and outdoor environments (T, humidity, conductivity, different gasses), detecting whether a product has been tampered with (movement detection).
Chemical sensors
Monitoring various gases such as organic compounds in the gas phase (T, conductivity, pH, humidity).