METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR IMPROVED WIRELESS SENSING

• US 20140028330A1
• Filed: 07/26/2012
• Published: 01/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GE Infrastructure Technology, LLC (General Electric Company)
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: POTYRAILO, RADISLAV ALEXANDROVICH, FORSTER, IAN JAMES
• Granted Patent: US 9,195,925 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 324/633
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 27/026 Dielectric impedance spectroscopy electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for measuring corrosion G01N17/02
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/0073 Control unit therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/0716 at least one of the integrated circuit chips comprising a sensor or an interface to a sensor

Abstract

In one embodiment, a RF sensor comprising a sensing antenna and a reference antenna, wherein a sensing material is disposed upon said sensing antenna and wherein the sensing antenna is configured to test for specific analyte by measurement of the resonant impedance spectra, and the reference antenna is configured to mitigate and correct for environmental parameters and positionn. In a further embodiment, a method for sensing comprising; utilizing an RF sensor, wherein the RF sensor comprises a sensing antenna and a reference antenna, wherein said RF sensor is configured to test for a specific analyte; and, measuring a resonant impedance spectra of the sensing antenna and reference antennaat multiple frequencies to provide a subsequent multivariate analysis of a signal response from the RF sensor.

Claims

1. A RF sensor comprising a sensing antenna and a reference antenna, wherein a sensing material is disposed upon said sensing antenna and wherein the sensing antenna is configured to test for specific analyte by measurement of the resonant impedance spectra, and the reference antenna is configured to mitigate and correct for environmental parameters and position.

2. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the sensing antenna has a combination of at least one sensing materials and/or sensing films disposed thereon to detect for desired parameter(s).

3. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the sensing antenna has a plurality of sensing materials diposed thereon to test for a plurality of desired analytes.

4. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the reference antenna is void of sensing materials and/or films disposed thereon, coated with a sensor material that is not exposed to the environment by use of a suitable barrier, or is coated with a material that makes it preferentially respond to a parameter but not a desired analyte, and is present to mitigate for environmental variation and.

5. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the RF sensor measures a combination of at least one frequency of the sensing antenna'"'"'s resultant resonant impedance spectra.

6. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the RF sensor measures a selected number of frequencies which are in turn examined along various points of the resonant impedance spectra.

7. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the resonant impedance spectra of the reference antenna and the sensing antenna are broken down into at least 8 ranges.

8. The RF sensor of claim 1, further comprising a mutual inductance coupling M between the sensing antenna and the reference antenna and a reader and variation in the mutual inductance coupling between the sensing and reference antennas and a reader is corrected via multivariable analysis of the resonance response spectra of the sensing antenna and the reference antenna.

9. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the sensing material and/or film comprises a polyaniline film, a dialectric a polymer film, a sulfonated polymer film, an adhesive polymer film, an inorganic film, a composite film, a polyisobutylene film, a nanocomposite film, a gold nanoparticle-polymer film, a metal nanoparticle polymer film, an electrospun polymer nanofiber film, an electrospun inorganic nanofiber film, an electrospun composite nanofiber film, films/fibers doped with organic, metallorganic or biologically derived molecules and any other sensor material.

10. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the thickness of the sensing material and/or film is uniformly thin with a range of 0.01 nm to 50 nm.

11. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the thickness of the sensing material and/or film is uniformly thick with a range of 50 nm to 10,000 nm.

12. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the sensing material and/or film is disposed thereon in a gradient and varies non uniformly across the length of the sensor from a range of 0.01 to one hundred times the distance between the sensing electrodes.

13. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the sensing antenna and the reference antenna are made into concentric coils.

14. The RF sensor of claim 12, wherein the relative ratio of distance between the sensing antenna and the reference antenna is constant so as to mitigate for positional discrepencies.

15. The RF sensor of claim 12, wherein the sensing antenna(s) and reference atenna(s) operate at frequencies ranging from 125 kHz to about 1,000,000 GHz.

16. The RF sensor of claim 1, further comprising multiple combinations of sensing antennas and reference antennas

17. The RF sensor of claim 1 further comprising a plurality of reference antennas wherein the sensing antenna and the plurality of reference antennas are positioned so as to create a flower petal like structure.

18. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein a sensing antenna and a reference antenna are positioned on the same side of a substrate of the RF sensor.

19. The RF sensor of claim 1, wherein the sensing antenna and the reference antenna are positioned on opposing sides of a substrate of the RF sensor.

20. A method for sensing comprising;

utilizing an RF sensor, wherein the RF sensor comprises a sensing antenna and a reference antenna, wherein said RF sensor is configured to test for a specific analyte; and

,

measuring a resonant impedance spectra of the sensing antenna and reference antennaat multiple frequencies to provide a subsequent multivariate analysis of a signal response from the RF sensor.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the measuring step comprises measuring at least four spectral parameters the sensing antenna(s) and reference antenna(s).

22. The method of claim 20, wherein at least two spectral paramaters from the reference antenna(s) response is used to determine a correction coefficient for the desired spectral parameters for use with correcting the sensing antenna response.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising performing a multivariate analysis utilizing the correction coefficiant on the spectral parameters of the sensing antenna(s)

24. The method of claim 20, wherein wherein the sensing antenna has a combination of at least one sensing materials and/or sensing films disposed thereon to detect for desired parameter(s).

25. The method of claim 20, wherein the sensing antenna has a plurality of sensing materials diposed thereon to test for a plurality of desired analytes.

26. The method of claim 20, wherein a reference antenna is void of sensing materials and/or films disposed thereon and is present to mitigate for environmental variation and position.

27. The method of claim 20, wherein the RF sensor measures a selected number of frequencies which are in turn examined along various points of the resonant impedance spectra.

28. The method of claim 20, wherein the resonant impedance spectra of the reference antenna and sensing antenna are broken down into at least 8 ranges.