ABSTRACT
One of the most common symptoms of respiratory pandemics, like COVID-19, is cough. Its monitoring is useful to trace the progress of the disease and to evaluate its severity. Traditional measurement methods are bulky and wired. Instead, wearable and wireless technologies such as the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) could allow the implementation of platforms able to monitor patients remotely. The monitoring of the respiratory function has already profited from the operation of temperature sensors put close to the airways as well as from the sensorization of facemasks, widely used in case of respiratory viruses. In this paper, a UHF RFID temperature sensor tag integrating auto-tuning capability is integrated inside a FFP2 facemask to retrieve temperature profiles used to count and detect three different types of coughing. All the cough shots are consistently detected by the system, and their periodicity and duration can be determined.
ABSTRACT
The last two years were strongly shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing countermeasures. The worldwide research changed as well, focusing on the problems created or exacerbated by the novel coronavirus. The Pervasive Electromagnetics Lab of the Tor Vergata University of Rome with a great engagement of several medical engineering students focused on applying sensor-oriented RFID to improve personal safety. In particular, the sensorization of the filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) was one of the COVID-inspired research topics. FFRs integrating RFID-based sensors were designed and tested. In this contribution, the most significant results achieved are summarized regarding humidity-sensing and cough-monitoring FFRs.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed our way of living. To minimize life losses, multi-level strategies requiring collective efforts were adopted while waiting for the vaccines’rollout. The management of such complex processes has taken benefit from the rising framework of the Internet of Things (IoT), and particularly the Radiofrequency Identification (RFID) since it is probably the most suitable approach to both the micro (user) and the macro (processes) scale. Hence, a single infrastructure can support both the logistic and monitoring issues related to the war against a pandemic. Based on the COVID-19 experience, this paper is a survey on how state-of-the-art RFID systems can be employed in facing future pandemic outbreaks. The three pillars of the contrast of the pandemic are addressed: 1) use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), 2) access control and social distancing, and 3) early detection of symptoms. For each class, the envisaged RFID devices and procedures are discussed based on the available technology and the current worldwide research. This survey that RFID could generate an extraordinary amount of data so that complementary paradigms of Edge Computing and Artificial intelligence can be tightly integrated to extract profiles and identify anomalous events in compliance with privacy and security. IEEE
ABSTRACT
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the last year many researchers have focused their efforts on limiting the spread of the virus. Along with the rush in the developing of vaccines, wearable technologies appeared to be excellent candidates for the early detection of infected individuals and the remote monitoring in hospitals and homes, by fostering the reduction of the contacts between caregivers and patients, while ensuring their safety. The wearable and epidermal Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) sensors offer nowadays a wide selection of comfortable devices, able to wirelessly monitor a significant set of physiological parameters. In particular, this short review will focus on the monitoring of body temperature and respiratory function, highly affected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, providing an overview of the current state of the art of RFID sensors, thus envisaging the benefits they can offer for the current and future pandemics. © 2021 University of Split, FESB.
ABSTRACT
The fight against pandemics is redesigning the interaction between doctor and patients with a clear request of remote monitoring of biological parameters, reducing the proximity. At this purpose, physical and chemical sensors placed on the skin with wireless reading, can provide the early detection of psycho-physical diseases. A plugplay epidermal patch based on Radiofrequency Identification technology is here proposed for the simultaneous remote reading of multi-physical and-chemical parameters of the skin. The board is designed to improve the usability of the device and to ease the experimentation of different disposable sensors. The resulting prototype made of biocompatible and comfortable encapsulation is readable up to 2 m in battery-Assisted mode and up to 80 cm without embedded power source (passive mode). Sensing experimentation was preliminary performed on the bench through the triple measurement of two chemical sensors (pH and sodium concentration) together with temperature, under controlled conditions. © 2021 IEEE.