Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Author

Babak Noroozi

Date

2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Committee Chair

Bashir Morshed

Committee Member

Eddie Jacobs

Committee Member

Madhusudhanan Balasubramanian

Committee Member

Amy L. de. Curry

Abstract

Noroozi, Babak. Ph.D. The University of Memphis. June 2020. Printed Spiral Coil Design, Implementation, and Optimization for 13.56 MHz Near-Field Wireless Resistive Analog Passive (WRAP) Sensors. Major Professor: Dr. Bashir I. Morshed.Monitoring the bio-signals in the regular daily activities for a long time can embrace many benefits for the patients, caregivers, and healthcare system. Early diagnosis of diseases prior to the onset of serious symptoms gives more time to take some preventive action and to begin effective treatment with lower cost. These health and economy benefits are achievable with a user-friendly, low-cost, and unobtrusive wearable sensor that can easily be carried by a patient with no interference with the normal life. The easy application of such sensor brings the smart and connected community (SCC) idea to existence. The spread of a designated disease, like COVID-19, can be studied by collecting the physiological signals transmitted from the wearable sensors in conjunction with a mobile app interface. Moreover, such a comfortable wearable sensor can help to monitor the vital signals during fitness activities for workout concerns. The desire of such wearable sensor has been responded in many researches and commercial products such as smart watch and Fitbit. Wireless connection between the sensor on the body and the scanner is the key and common factor of all convenient wearables. This essential feature has been currently addressed by the costly techniques which is the main impediment to be widely applicable. The existing wireless methods including WiFi, Bluetooth, RFID, and NFC impose cost, complexity, weight, and extra maintenance including battery replacement or recharging, which drove us to propose a low-cost, convenient, and simple technique for wireless connection suitable for battery-less fully-passive sensors. Using a pair of coils connected by the near-field magnetic induction has been copiously used in wireless power transfer (WPT) for medical and industrial applications. However, near field RFID and NFC rely on this technique with active circuits. In contrast, we have proposed a wireless resistive analog passive (WRAP) sensor in which a resistive transducer at the secondary side, affects the primary quality factor (Q) through the inductive connection between a pair of square-shaped Printed Spiral Coils (PSC). The primary 13.56 MHz (ISM band) signal is modulated in response to the continuous change of bio-signal and the amount of response to the unit change in transducer resistance is defined as sensitivity. A higher sensitivity enables the system to respond to the smaller bio-signals and increases the coils maximum relative mobilities. The PSCs specifications and circuit components determine the sensitivity and its tolerance to the coils displacements. We first define and formulize the objective function for coil and components optimization to achieve the maximum sensitivity. Although the optimization methods do not show much different results, due to the speed and simplicity, the Genetic Algorithm (GA) technique is chosen as an advanced method. Then in second optimization stage, the axial and lateral distances that affect the mutual inductance are introduced to the optimization process. The results as a pair of PSCs profiles and the associated circuit components are obtained and fabricated that produced the maximum sensitivity and misalignment tolerance. For the sake of patient comfort, the secondary coil size is fixed at 20 mm and the primary coil is optimized at 60 mm with the maximum (normalized) sensitivity 1.3 m for 16 mm axial distance. If the Read-Zone is defined as the space in which the center of secondary coil can move and the sensitivity keeps at least half of its maximum value, the best Read-Zone has a conical shape with the base radius 22.5 mm and height 14 mm. The analytical results are verified by the measurement results on the fabricated coils and circuits.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest

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