A Wireless and Battery-free Biosensor Based on Parallel Resonators for Monitoring a Wide Range of Biosignals

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel wireless, battery-free biosensor based on parallel resonators capable of detecting a wide range of biosignals, including glucose levels and pressure, with high sensitivity and minimal sample volume.

Contribution

The study presents a fully passive, miniaturized biosensor with a unique effective capacitance mechanism, enabling versatile biosignal monitoring and pressure sensing in wound care.

Findings

Successfully detected glucose in aqueous solutions with high sensitivity.

Demonstrated pressure sensing through resonance shift with linear response.

Confirmed suitability for minimally invasive and wound monitoring applications.

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel wireless, battery-free, and label-free biosensor for minimally invasive and non-invasive permittivity sensing for applications such as detecting glucose levels in the interstitial dermal fluid. The miniaturized, fully passive sensor is based on two symmetric parallel 0.8 mm$^3$ LC (inductor-capacitor) resonators. Each inductor is integrated with a conductive plate at one of its terminals. The passive sensor's main field is dominant outside the resonators, creating an effective capacitance outside the sensor, unlike reported in previous studies where the effective capacitance was limited to between the resonator lines. The proposed sensor was further analyzed under two different scenarios to change the region of effective capacitance and test its suitability for pressure monitoring, such as wound monitoring; first, by repositioning one of the two resonators, and second, by replacing one of the resonators with a conductive plate. The experimental results confirmed the proposed passive sensor's performance in detecting the glucose concentration in an aqueous solution with a sensitivity of 500 and 46 kHz/(mg/dL) for minimal invasive and non-invasive monitoring, respectively, within the glucose range of 0-500 mg/dL with volume sample requirements as low as 60 $\mu$L. Further, by repositioning one of the resonators, the effective capacitance lies inside the passive sensor, making it suitable for wound monitoring. The results indicated that the resonance shift can be made fairly linear with respect to the variation in the separation between the resonators with a sensitivity of 2.5$\times 10^3$ MHz/mm within the separation range of 0.2-0.5 mm, considering separation as the main factor to sense the pressure or healing of the wound.