Investigation into the future of RFID in biomedical applications

Abstract

This paper focuses on the future of RFID systems for biomedicalapplications. It discusses current technology, restrictions andapplications and also illustrates possible future development forthe technology. This report gives the reader an idea of whatresearch has been done to date and draws some conclusions aboutwhere further development is needed. We focus mainly on actuatordevices and introduce some of the concepts for RFID sensors. RadioFrequency Identification or RFID is a technology that has evolvedfrom the development of magnetic bar code systems. Unlike magneticbar codes, passive RFID can be used in extreme climatic conditionsand unlike conventional bar coding does not require wiring or thetags to be within close proximity of the reader. In RFIDtechnology there are two main components, they are an Interrogatorand a label/transponder. The interrogator sends coded RF signalsto the label in the form of radio frequency waves. The labelreceives this RF energy and uses it to power its circuit as wellas interpreting the energy as some form of instruction. In thisreport we focus mainly on the label/transponder and assume thatthe relevant RF energy has been correctly encoded and sent.