A Compact, Passive Frequency-Hopping Harmonic Sensor Based on a Microfluidic Reconfigurable Dual-Band Antenna
Liang Zhu, Mohamed Farhat, Yi‐Chao Chen, K. Saláma, Pai‐Yen Chen
Abstract
We propose here a fully-passive wireless liquid sensor using a harmonic transponder, which comprises a dual-band microstrip antenna reconfigured by different types of liquids injected in a fluidic cavity. Different from traditional radio-frequency (RF) backscatter sensors, the proposed harmonic-transponder sensor (or harmonic sensor) receives frequency-hopped RF monotones and backscatters their second harmonics, with the peak frequency shifted by dielectric properties of liquid mixtures. This microstrip antenna has a hybrid-feed structure, of which an outer splitring patch exhibits a narrow-band TM <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">310</sub> mode at the fundamental frequency (f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub> ) and an inner elliptical patch displays a wideband resonance centered at the second-harmonic frequency (2f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub> ), achieved with hybridization of TM <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">e110</sub> and TM <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">o110</sub> modes. In particular, the outer split-ring patch is loaded with a fluidic channel system to tune the resonance-frequency of the TM <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">310</sub> mode (f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub> ). We demonstrate that the type of liquid mixture filling in the fluidic cavity can be clearly perceived by reading the peak received signal strength indicator (RSSI) in the spectrum of second harmonics. Our results show the potential for deploying this passive wireless sensor in noisy environments that include clutters, multiple reflections, jamming, and crosstalks.