6 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 8, NO.
1, JANUARY 2008
A Novel Method to Read Remotely Resonant
Passive Sensors in Biotelemetric Systems
Sérgio Francisco Pichorim and Paulo José Abatti
Abstract—Resonant passive sensors composed by resistive,
inductive, and capacitive (RLC) simple sensors are widely used
in biotelemetric systems. In this paper, a novel method to read
remotely these RLC sensors is presented. The developed method
is based on the simultaneous application of three excitation signals
of same amplitudes, set at different frequencies, to determine
remotely the RLC sensor resonance frequency ( ) and quality
factor ( ). Theoretical analysis and experimental results are also
presented.
Index Terms—Biomedical instrumentation, biomedical
telemetry, implantable sensors, quality factor, resistive, inductive,
and capacitive (RLC) passive sensor, resonance frequency, wireless
telemetry.
I. INTRODUCTION
A MONG THE biomedical sensors for in vivo applications,
the telemetric implantable devices present the advan-
tage of working without wires or cables trespassing the skin,
thus reducing biological infection, discomfort, and risks of
microshocks [1]. In addition, working with transcutaneous
communication by radio frequency (RF) signals, this method
is adequate for continuous and/or long-term monitoring [2].
Moreover, an inductive link can be used to power the im-
plantable unit, therefore allowing its application where the
battery of the sensor cannot be exchanged or recharged [3], [4].
Another advantage of passive sensors is that they can be con-
structed with reduced dimensions (few millimeters) allowing
their direct injection, using hypodermic needles into the body.
This procedure reduces the patient recovering period, since it
does not require surgical intervention to place the sensor in-
side the biological tissue [1]. Of course, for practical purposes,
the injectable unit must be encapsulated with biocompatible
material.
In general, the injectable unit is composed by an antenna (a
coil), a capacitor (for tuning), and may contain an electronic in-
tegrated circuit. The use of an active circuit (microchip) in a
battery-less telemetry improves the system accuracy and sensi-
tivity, but its complexity and the costs of development are the
main obstacles to their widespread use [2].
Passive sensors, constructed using only resistive, inductive,
and capacitive (RLC) components, are simple, cheaper, and
Manuscript received December 19, 2006; revised July 5, 2007; July 31, 2007.
This work was supported in part by CNPq (Brazilian Council for Scientific and
Technological Development). The associate editor coordinating the review of
this paper and approving it for publication was Dr. Robert Black.
The authors are with the CPGEI/UTFPR-Federal University of Technology,
Av. Sete de Setembro, 3165 CEP: 80230-901 Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil (e-mail:
pichorim@utfpr.edu.br; abatti@utfpr.edu.br).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2007.912386
1530-437X/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE
potentially safer. However, they have comparatively poor
signal-to-noise ratio, low accuracy, and sensitivity, and its
operational distance is intrinsically restricted [2], [4]. Since
the classical pressure sensor developed in 1967 by Collins,
the implantable passive inductive-capacitive (LC) sensors have
been used for in vivo applications in medicine and bioengi-
neering [5]. This sensor has its resonance frequency
modified in response to the quantity being measured, which
can be detected externally using RF signals [6]. Although the
communications distance is still a concern, in many biomedical
applications, the range is not more than a few centimeters, and
hence the sensor resonance frequency can be easily determined
by a sensitive receiver [4]. Recent biomedical applications of
implantable/injectable RLC passive sensors include blood flow
and pressure [7], intraocular pressure [2], [4], [5], [8], humidity
[9], and tendon strain and elasticity [1] biotelemetric systems.
These sensors are constructed with silicon micromachining
and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), or even with
handmade and discrete components [1]–[10].
Evidently, the sensors reading unit is critical to improve the
overall system performance. A traditional receiver to detect the
of a passive LC or RLC sensor uses an excitation signal in a
“grid-dip” approach [2], [5], [7], [8]. In this technique, a sinu-
soidal RF voltage with adjustable frequency applied to an exci-
tation coil induces a current in the inductor of the nearby sensor.
The loading effect (reflected impedance) of the sensor on exci-
tation coil results in a minimum (dip) in the input voltage when-
ever the excitation signal frequency matches the sensor [6].
A variation of this approach is the phase-dip technique, since the
phase of the input signal due to the reflected impedance shows
a “dip” whenever the excitation signal frequency matches the
sensor [4]. Although most of the passive biotelemetric sys-
tems employ the “grid-dip” technique, alternative approaches
to determine remotely have been developed. For instance,
Cho and Asada [3] have been able to determine the capacitance
of a remote sensor and the mutual inductance of the biotele-
metric system, tracking the estimated sensor and employing
the least squares methods to minimize the effect of the noise by
using several data points.
All the above reading techniques use as an excitation signal a
constant amplitude voltage source which can have its frequency
adjusted in a “sweep” mode, in a “step” mode, or employing
a set of predetermined frequencies values. The sweep mode,
usually implemented employing a voltage controlled oscillator
(VCO), is intrinsically time consuming, since excitation signal
frequency is incremented continuously until is found. The
step mode and the use of predetermined frequencies values, usu-
ally implemented employing direct digital synthesis (DDS) in-
PICHORIM AND ABATTI: A NOVEL METHOD TO READ REMOTELY RESONANT PASSIVE SENSORS IN BIOTELEMETRIC SYSTEMS 7

Fig. 1. Electric diagram of coils arrangement with inductances and mutual in-
ductances involved. Reading coil ( L ) and canceling coil (L ) are in front
of and behind of the excitation coil ( L ), respectively, with separation dis-
d D
tance . Passive RLC sensor with distance of separation from the first coil.

d
Fig. 2. Determination of the optimal distance of separation (for a specific
L d
microcoil with 5 mm long and 10 mm apart, the best is 8.5 mm). Excitation
tegrated circuits, would be comparatively quicker, since exci-
M
mutual inductance ( d
) decreases with distance and reading mutual induc-
tation signal frequency is incremented in discrete steps. How- tance (M = M 0M d
) increases with distance . Bold line indicates
ever, it has been recently demonstrated that a sudden modifica- M 1M
the total coupling, proportional to , as shown in (3).
tion on excitation signal frequency produces a transient response
similar to those produced by a sudden alteration on excitation
signal amplitude, introducing errors on determination [11]. inductance between and and and (for distance
To minimize this unexpected effect, it is necessary to measure ) [12], the optimum can be determined. Fig. 2 illustrates
the circuit response only after the transient component can be normalized and as a function of , for mm,
neglected. Since for a practical passive sensor this transitory pe- showing that optimum is 8.5 mm [10].
riod can be as long as 160 s [11], the main advantage of latter The current at the remote circuit can be written as
methods, comparing with the former, is not, in fact, significant.
In this paper, a novel method of reading the resonance fre- (2)
quency and quality factor of a passive RLC sensor is
presented. To avoid problems with sweep time and/or transient where and are the inductive and
components, the sensor is excited using three signals, set at dif- capacitive reactances, respectively, and represents the equiv-
ferent frequencies, applied simultaneously. The theoretical and alent inductor and capacitor internal resistances.
experimental aspects of the developed method are discussed in Substituting (2) in (1) yields
details.
(3)
II. THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
Fig. 1 shows the developed biotelemetric system simplified The proposed method employs only the evaluation of the re-
electric circuit. Note that and coils are wound in ceived voltage. Thus, computing the modulus of the received
the opposite direction, forming an arrangement known as anti- voltage , using (3) gives
Helmholtz coils, producing a null magnetic field at the central
plane, i.e., at the excitation coil . Thus, the direct coupling
between and output is minimized. Assuming that the
reading system has a high input impedance can
(4)
be written as

where . In this equation, , and

(1) are not known. These parameters represent three passive RLC
circuit variables, , , and distance . Rewriting (4) yields
where the mutual inductance (between and ) has
been considered equal to (between and ), the mu- (5)
tual inductance (between and ) minus (be-
tween and ) is called , and and are the cur- Using in (5) the new variables , and
rents at and at the resonant circuit, respectively. Observe yields
that as the distance between and , which is equal
to that between and , increases, also increases,
improving the response. However, as increases coupling be- (6)
tween and decreases, which, consequently, decreases the
signal-to-noise ratio. Therefore, there is an optimal for the ex- The solution of , and is obtained applying (6) for three
citation/reception coils. Considering the distance between and different frequencies , and with the same amplitude
) equal to 10 mm, and computing the maximum mutual signal . This procedure will result in three output voltage
8 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 8, NO. 1, JANUARY 2008

signals , and related to excitation signal fre- parallel RLC circuit. The conversion between series and parallel
quencies , , and , respectively. Solving the three equa- RLC circuit can be given [13] by
tions system, and can be written as
(15)

(7) where and are the internal resistances of and in a par-

allel and series arrangement, respectively. Evidently, a resistive
and transducer can be applied in parallel or in series with or
, respectively, and the influence of the latter should be taken
into account on determination from . This can be done
(8) using

respectively, where (16)

(9)
and
(10)
Therefore, combining (7) with (8), the remote circuit reso-
nance frequency can be determined, yielding
(11)
where
(12)
Using (4), for a given excitation signal frequency, for instance,
and isolating gives (13) shown at the bottom of the page.
Substituting (7) and (8) in (13) and combining the result with
(11), after manipulation, yields (14) shown at the bottom of the
page.
Observe that and are automatically canceled in (11)
and (14), so that using only three excitation signal frequencies
and can be completely determined. Thus, for instance,
considering constant using (11) and afterwards (14), and
of the remote sensor can be determined.
It must be pointed out that the use of a resistive transducer is
not straightforward, since it must be combined with the internal
resistances of the inductor and capacitor. In Fig. 1, shown is a
series RLC circuit, however, it is possible to obtain an equivalent
or
(17)
III. PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION
In the proposed method, the resonant passive sensor must be
excited with three frequencies ( , and ) and the responses
( , and ) must be read to determine the resonance
frequency and/or quality factor of the sensor. Fig. 3
shows the implementation of the reading system, which is com-
posed by excitation oscillators, coils, amplifiers, filters, and a
microprocessor. In order to have stable excitation frequencies,
a quartz oscillator of 8 MHz was used, and its frequency was
digitally divided by 15, 14, and 13 (using 74LS193) to obtain
three different responses. These signals were also divided by
two to yield square waves (duty cycle of 50%) with frequen-
cies of 267, 286, and 308 kHz, corresponding to , and ,
respectively. The excitation driver for that also adds the
three waves of 10 Vpp was constructed with operational
amplifier LM 318, which has a high slew rate (50 V/ s) and op-
erates with high-voltage supplies ( V). Sinusoidal waves in
are obtained by a passive LC filter constructed using .
It is important to point out that in the developed equations it has
been supposed that the signals have the same amplitude. Fig. 4
shows the practical spectrum, demonstrating that the indi-
vidual signals have approximately the same amplitude.
Excitation coil was wound with 20 turns of copper wire with
radius of 200 m (26 AWG and H). Receiving and
canceling coils were wound with 45 turns of copper wire with
radius of 125 m (30 AWG and total auto-inductance

(13)

(14)
PICHORIM AND ABATTI: A NOVEL METHOD TO READ REMOTELY RESONANT PASSIVE SENSORS IN BIOTELEMETRIC SYSTEMS 9

Fig. 3. Block diagram of a circuit which applies the proposed method of reading biotelemetric resonant passive sensors. Direct excitation noise is caused by L
and L coils offset (M 6= M ).

set by software. Thus, the use of new technologies as direct

digital synthesis (D.D.S.) to generate the excitation frequencies
and digital filters by digital signal processor (D.S.P.) could be
implemented.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

All developed equations in this work were derived assuming
that the mutual inductance (between and ) is
equal to (between and ). In other words, it was
assumed that there was a complete cancellation of excitation in
the output signal. However, to have a more realistic prediction
about the system performance, a noise, representing the direct
coupling signal (0.07% or dB of ) to values was
employed on simulation using (11) and (14). Errors less than
0.4% in value of , and for a RLC quality factor of 40, errors
Fig. 4. Practical spectral representation of the excitation signal (V ). Observe up to 10% in were estimated. In this way, other simulations
that three frequencies f ; f , and f (267, 286, and 308 kHz, respectively) have
approximately the same amplitude. have shown that the determination of has a good immunity
to this noise, while errors in decrease only when circuits with
moderate quality factor (about ten) are used. In addition, these
of 230 H). Separation distance was mechanically ad- simulations had shown that the choice of the three excitation fre-
justed to minimize direct coupling of excitation signals in the quencies is also very important in the method. Errors less than
receiving coil (a rejection of 63 dB of in was mea- 0.2% have been found when is located between and ,
sured) [10]. preferably near to . Also, the range between these frequen-
In the reception, amplifiers and filters are constructed to cies cannot be very wide. Finally, due to the proximity between
separate the responses of passive sensors. Three bandpass fil- the three excitation frequencies, an extra noise about of to
ters (second-order filters constructed using TL074 operational dB, caused by filters limitations is registered in output volt-
amplifiers and parallel LC circuits) with bandwidth of 14 kHz ages . However, even with this noise, simulations show errors
were tuned in the three excitation less than 1.2% in determination.
frequencies. Again, the same voltage gain for amplifiers and With these theoretical results in mind, a passive RLC circuit
filters must be adjusted. was constructed to evaluate the proposed method of reading. A
The peak detector circuit (half-wave precision rectifier con- circular coil with radius 12.2 mm and 35 turns (inductance of
structed using TL074 operational amplifiers), sample and hold, 50 H, , and ) was used as
8-bit A/D converter (ADC0808 family), and processor (using sensor inductor. A variable capacitor (range from 7 to 8.2 nF)
the parallel interface of an IBM PC compatible) complete the tuned the sensor with resonance frequency between 277
reading system. Values of response are converted in and 302 kHz. A variable resistor (range from 1 k to 10 k )
and parameters of the sensor using (11) and (14). Although simulating a transducer , change the quality factor between 5
the developed equations are long, they do not have complex im- and 9.5. Distances of 15–20 mm were used during tests. Fig. 5
plementation, and the firmware can execute 118 readings of presents the resonance frequency measured by proposed method
and per second (8.5 ms each reading). as a function of tuned , showing errors less than 1.22% (mean
However, it must be emphasized that the implemented system error of 0.4 % and a correlation coefficient of 0.99566). Observe
was used only to validate the novel method to read remotely that six different tunings are made, while in each tuning, resistor
resonant RLC sensors, but this is not the best circuitry. A more and distance had been modified. In addition, working
flexible reading system would be interesting for practical ap- with only 20 mm of distance, the correlation coefficient has been
plications, where a wide range of frequencies could be read or improved slightly to 0.9968 (errors less than 1.18% and mean
10
Fig. 5. Resonance frequency of the passive sensor measured by the telemetric
system in function of tuned frequency. Correlation coefficient of 0.99566.
Fig. 6. Quality factor of the passive sensor measured by the telemetric system
Q R fo
in function of adjusted (by adjusting ) for tuned = 284 kHz and three
D
distances . Correlation coefficient of 0.9890.
error of 0.3%). Anyway, only a small variation of was ob-
served, showing an insensitivity of with respect to and
variations. Fig. 6 presents measured values of sensor quality
factors in functions of adjusted values of . The sensor was
set (range from 5–9.5) by adjusting the resistor in six dif-
ferent resistances (range from 1 to 10 k ), and for a tuning
of 284 kHz. A mean error of 5.5% (a correlation coefficient of
0.989) was obtained. If during the measurement of , also
changes, an extra error is observed and the correlation coeffi-
cient decreases to 0.9094.
V. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
A novel method to read remotely resonant sensors has been
presented. The proposed method presents a good accuracy in
resonance frequency (about 1%) measurements. For quality
factor measurements, some extras cares are necessary, specially
the choice of passive circuit range. In high- circuits, errors
caused by the noncanceling effects of the coils are significant.
For low- circuits, the consequent poor signal-to-noise ratio
increases the measurement errors. Anyway, using more selec-
tive filters, errors, mainly in measurements can be reduced.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 8, NO. 1, JANUARY 2008
In addition, as observed in practical experiments, great varia-
tions on reduced the coefficient of correlation in measure-
ment. However, for limited ranges of and , the proposed
method is apparently feasible and applicable for two parame-
ters monitoring with a small passive sensor.
The presented method can make possible the determination
of and almost in real time, having only the delay time be-
tween measurement and processing data. However, due to non-
total filter rejection of the other two frequencies, a new error is
introduced into the system. Despite the volume of calculations
necessary to determine and, in some cases, , this technique
can be applied in practical biomedical systems with implantable
or injectable sensors [1], [10].
It must be emphasized that the determination of or is in-
dependent of the values of distance (keeping the signal-to-noise
ratio in an adequate value), amplifiers or filters gain, and passive
sensor components, facilitating the system calibration. For situ-
ations of low-noise and low-quality factor, knowing the value of
only one component of the passive sensor, the other two values
can be obtained. For example, for a known fixed capacitor ,
using a NTC thermistor as electrical resistance , and a dis-
placement sensor as an inductor , two physiological param-
eters (e.g., temperature and displacement) can be, in principle,
simultaneously monitored, using a simple passive sensor with a
good accuracy.
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PICHORIM AND ABATTI: A NOVEL METHOD TO READ REMOTELY RESONANT PASSIVE SENSORS IN BIOTELEMETRIC SYSTEMS
Sérgio Francisco Pichorim was born in São José
dos Pinhais, Paraná, Brazil, on April 23, 1965.
He received the Electrical Engineering degree and
the M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees, both in biomedical
engineering, from the Paraná Federal Center of
Technological Education (CEFET-PR), Paraná, in
1990, 1995, and 2003, respectively.
Since 1998, he has been a Professor with the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Federal
University of Technology—Paraná (UTFPR). His
research interests include development of com-
munication techniques and electronic circuits for biotelemetry systems,
bioelectromagnetism, implantable biotelemetry systems, and biomedical
sensors and instrumentation.
11
Paulo José Abatti was born in Curitiba, Paraná,
Brazil, on January 3, 1958. He received the B.S.
degree in electrical engineering from the Federal
University of Paraná, Paraná, in 1980, the M.E.E.
degree in biomedical engineering from the State
University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, in 1983,
and the Doctor of Engineering degree in electrical
and electronic engineering from the Tokyo Institute
of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1991.
He has been with the Federal University of Tech-
nology—Paraná (UTFPR) since 1977, where he is
currently Titular Professor and Pro-Rector for Postgraduation and Research
Affairs. His present research activities involve development of communication
techniques and electronic circuits for implantable biotelemetry systems and
modeling of biological phenomena.