Batteryless, Miniaturized Implantable Glucose Sensor Using a Fluorescent Hydrogel

We propose a biomedical sensor system for continuous monitoring of glucose concentration. Despite recent advances in implantable biomedical devices, mm sized devices have yet to be developed due to the power limitation of the device in a tissue. We here present a mm sized wireless system with backscattered frequency-modulation communication that enables a low-power operation to read the glucose level from a fluorescent hydrogel sensor. The configuration of the reader structure is optimized for an efficient wireless power transfer and data communication, miniaturizing the entire implantable device to 3 × 6 mm 2 size. The operation distance between the reader and the implantable device reaches 2 mm with a transmission power of 33 dBm. We demonstrate that the frequency of backscattered signals changes according to the light intensity of the fluorescent glucose sensor. We envision that the present wireless interface can be applied to other fluorescence-based biosensors to make them highly comfortable, biocompatible, and stable within a body.

EVE polarization lidar: ESA’s ground reference system for Aeolus L2A products Cal/Val

<p>The EVE (Enhancement and Validation of ESA products) lidar is a mobile, ground-based, polarization lidar system, developed to provide ground reference measurements for the validation of the Aeolus L2A products. The system utilizes a dual-laser/dual-telescope configuration that emits linearly and circularly polarized light at 355 nm  interleaved and detects the linear and circular depolarization on the backscattered signals as well as the Raman backscattering at 387 nm. Consequently, the particle optical properties of backscatter coefficient, extinction coefficient, linear and circular depolarization ratios can be measured by the lidar. Moreover, the system’s dual configuration enables to mimic both the operation of ALADIN on board Aeolus that relies on the circularly polarized emission and the operation of a polarization lidar system with linearly polarized emission. Besides EVE’s main goal of the Aeolus L2A products performance evaluation under a wide variety of aerosol types, EVE can also validate the linear to circular depolarization conversions, which have to be used for the harmonization of the linearly polarized lidar systems with Aeolus, and as such, to evaluate any possible biases of the efforts of these systems on Aeolus L2A validation.</p>

Multi-Filter Decoding in WiFi Backscatter Communication

WiFi backscatter communication has emerged as a promising enabler of ultralow-power connectivity for Internet of things, wireless sensor network and smart energy. In this paper, we propose a multi-filter design for effective decoding of WiFi backscattered signals. Backscattered signals are relatively weak compared to carrier WiFi signals and therefore require algorithms that filter out original WiFi signals without affecting the backscattered signals. Two multi-filter designs for WiFi backscatter decoding are presented: the summation and delimiter approaches. Both implementations employ the use of additional filters with different window sizes to efficiently cut off undesired noise/interference, thus enhancing frame detection and decoding performance, and can be coupled with a wide range of decoding algorithms. The designs are particularly productive in the frequency-shift WiFi backscatter communication. We demonstrate via prototyping and testbed experiments that the proposed design enhances the performance of various decoding algorithms in real environments.

Investigation of the Effect of Magnification, Accelerating Voltage, and Working Distance on the 3D Digital Reconstruction Techniques

In this study, the effect of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) parameters such as magnification ( M ), accelerating voltage ( V ), and working distance (WD) on the 3D digital reconstruction technique, as the first step of the quantitative characterization of fracture surfaces with SEM, was investigated. The 2D images were taken via a 4-Quadrant Backscattered Electron (4Q-BSE) detector. In this study, spherical particles of Ti-6Al-4V (15-45 μm) deposited on the silicon substrate were used. It was observed that the working distance has a significant influence on the 3D digital rebuilding method via SEM images. The results showed that the best range of the working distance for our system is 9 to 10 mm. It was shown that by increasing the magnification to 1000x, the 3D digital reconstruction results improved. However, there was no significant improvement by increasing the magnification beyond 1000x. In addition, results demonstrated that the lower the accelerating voltage, the higher the precision of the 3D reconstruction technique, as long as there are clean backscattered signals. The optimal condition was achieved when magnification, accelerating voltage, and working distance were chosen as 1000x, 3 kV, and 9 mm, respectively.

Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Methane with IR OPO Lidar System

A differential absorption lidar (DIAL) system designed on the basis of optical parametric oscillators (OPO) with nonlinear KTiOAsO4 (KTA) and KTiOPO4 (KTP) crystals is described. The crystals allow laser radiation tuning in the infrared region (IR) wavelength region. The measurements in the 3.30–3.50 μm spectral range, which includes a strong absorption band of methane, are carried out. Lidar backscattered signals in the spectral band 3.30–3.50 μm has been measured and analyzed along the horizontal path in the atmosphere. Based on the experimental results, CH4 concentrations ~2.085 ppm along a 800 m surface path are retrieved in the spectral range under study with a spatial resolution of 100 m.