Internet of Things (IoT) based application requires integration with the wireless communication technology to make the application data readily available. In this paper, a modified meander shape ...microstrip patch antenna has been proposed for IoT applications at 2.4 GHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) band. The dimension of the antenna is 40x10x1.6 mm3. The antenna design is comprised of an inverse S-shape meander line connected with a slotted rectangular box. A capacitive load (C-load) and parasitic patch with the shaped ground are applied to the design. Investigations show that the antenna designed with an inverse S-shape patch and connecting rectangular box in the microstrip line has a higher efficiency and gain compare to the conventional meander shape antenna. The C-load is applied to the feed line to match the impedance. Moreover, parametric studies are carried out to investigate the flexibility of the antenna. Results show that, the gain and efficiency can be improved through adjusting the rectangular box with applying parasitic element and the shaped ground. The parasitic element has high impact on the bandwidth of the antenna of 12.5%. The finalized antenna has a peak gain of -0.256 dBi (measured) and 1.347 dBi (Simulated) with 79% radiation efficiency at 2.4 GHz. To prove the efficiency and eligibility in IoT applications, the measurement of the power delivered and received by the antenna at 2.4 GHz is performed and compared with the results of a dipole antenna. The antenna is integrated with 2.4 GHz radio frequency module and IoT sensors to validate the performance. The antenna novelty relies on the size compactness with high fractional bandwidth that is validated through the IoT application environment.
The disruptive potentials of drones are rapidly growing including for the delivery of blood samples in healthcare. Maintenance of the quality of blood samples is important to ascertain that the drone ...is a safe mode of transportation, particularly during emergencies and in critical cases. The influence of the drone carriage material on blood samples transportation was investigated in this study. Two phases of drone simulation flights were conducted in Cyberjaya, Malaysia. In Phase 1, the effect of drone carriage material on the internal storage temperature during blood samples transportation was determined. Three types of carriage materials were compared: aluminium, expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam, and polypropylene (PP) plastic. In Phase 2, the quality of drone-transported blood samples was assessed, using the best material from Phase 1 as the drone carriage material. Biochemical and hematological analyses of 60 blood samples were conducted using five parameters. In Phase 1, EPS foam was found to be the best material to maintain a stable and favorable internal storage temperature at mean kinetic temperature ±SD of 4.70 ±1.14°C. Much higher and unfavorable mean kinetic temperatures were recorded for aluminium (11.46 ±0.35°C) and plastic (14.17 ±0.05°C). In Phase 2, laboratory tests show that the quality of blood samples was well maintained, and the mean biochemical and hematological parameters of drone-transported blood samples showed no significant alteration compared to ground controls. Drone carriage material is an important determinant of the quality of blood samples transported by drone, particularly in hot equatorial climates as in Malaysia. The blood storage temperature was best maintained using EPS foam, as evidenced by the favorable average temperature and preservation of hematological and biochemical parameters of the blood samples.
A gap coupled hexagonal split ring resonator (GCHSRR) based metamaterial is presented in this paper for S-band and X-band microwave applications with absorptance. This gap coupled hexagonal split ...ring resonator is the amendment of the typical split-ring resonator (SRR). Three interconnected hexagonal split ring resonators are applied with a stripline to increase the electrical length and coupling effect of the GCHSRR. SRR has an impact on the extraction of effective parameters such as permittivity, permeability and refractive index. The dimension of the proposed GCHSRR unit cell is 10×10 mm2, which is printed on low-cost FR4 material. The transmission frequency of the proposed GCHSRR unit cell ranges from 3.42 GHz to 3.73 GHz and 11.27 GHz to 11.91 GHz, which makes the metamaterial applicable for S-band and X-band microwave applications. The GCHSRR unit cell has a double negative regime of 7.92 GHz to 9.78 GHz with an effective negative refractive index regime of 6.30 GHz to 10.22 GHz and 11.97 GHz to 12.61 GHz. The effective medium ratio is 8.4, which implies the novelty of the proposed design. Moreover, the GCHSRR has high absorption peaks of 99%, 98%, and 81% at 4.27 GHz, 5.42 GHz, and 12.40 GHz, respectively. An 18×20 GCHSRR array structure is also designed and studied. The effective parameters and the effective medium ratio with a high absorptance make the proposed GCHSRR based metamaterial suitable for practical microwave applications.
Internet of Things (IoT) based healthcare system is now at the top peak because of its potentialities among all other IoT applications. Supporting sensors integrated with IoT healthcare can ...effectively analyze and gather the patients’ physical health data that has made the IoT based healthcare ubiquitously acceptable. A set of challenges including the continuous presence of the healthcare professionals and staff as well as the proper amenities in remote areas during emergency situations need to be addressed for developing a flexible IoT based healthcare system. Besides that, the human entered data are not as reliable as automated generated data. The development of the IoT based health monitoring system allows a personalized treatment in certain circumstances that helps to reduce the healthcare cost and wastage with a continuous improving outcome. We present an IoT based health monitoring system using the MySignals development shield with (Low power long range) LoRa wireless network system. Electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor, body temperature sensor, pulse rate, and oxygen saturation sensor have been used with MySignals and LoRa. Evaluating the performances and effectiveness of the sensors and wireless platform devices are also analyzed in this paper by applying physiological data analysis methodology and statistical analysis. MySignals enables the stated sensors to gather physical data. The aim is to transmit the gathered data from MySignals to a personal computer by implementing a wireless system with LoRa. The results show that MySignals is successfully interfaced with the ECG, temperature, oxygen saturation, and pulse rate sensors. The communication with the hyper-terminal program using LoRa has been implemented and an IoT based healthcare system is being developed in MySignals platform with the expected results getting from the sensors.
Not long ago, hearables paved the way for biosensing, fitness, and healthcare monitoring. Smart earbuds today are not only producing sound but also monitoring vital signs. Reliable determination of ...cardiovascular and pulmonary system information can explore the use of hearables for physiological monitoring. Recent research shows that photoplethysmography (PPG) signals not only contain details on oxygen saturation level (SPO2) but also carry more physiological information including pulse rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, and arterial-related information. The analysis of the PPG signal from the ear has proven to be reliable and accurate in the research setting. (1) Background: The present integrative review explores the existing literature on an in-ear PPG signal and its application. This review aims to identify the current technology and usage of in-ear PPG and existing evidence on in-ear PPG in physiological monitoring. This review also analyzes in-ear (PPG) measurement configuration and principle, waveform characteristics, processing technology, and feature extraction characteristics. (2) Methods: We performed a comprehensive search to discover relevant in-ear PPG articles published until December 2022. The following electronic databases: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed were utilized to conduct the studies addressing the evidence of in-ear PPG in physiological monitoring. (3) Results: Fourteen studies were identified but nine studies were finalized. Eight studies were on different principles and configurations of hearable PPG, and eight studies were on processing technology and feature extraction and its evidence in in-ear physiological monitoring. We also highlighted the limitations and challenges of using in-ear PPG in physiological monitoring. (4) Conclusions: The available evidence has revealed the future of in-ear PPG in physiological monitoring. We have also analyzed the potential limitation and challenges that in-ear PPG will face in processing the signal.
Gait analysis is an essential tool for detecting biomechanical irregularities, designing personalized rehabilitation plans, and enhancing athletic performance. Currently, gait assessment depends on ...either visual observation, which lacks consistency between raters and requires clinical expertise, or instrumented evaluation, which is costly, invasive, time-consuming, and requires specialized equipment and trained personnel. Markerless gait analysis using 2D pose estimation techniques has emerged as a potential solution, but it still requires significant computational resources and human involvement, making it challenging to use. This research proposes an automated method for temporal gait analysis that employs the MediaPipe Pose, a low-computational-resource pose estimation model. The study validated this approach against the Vicon motion capture system to evaluate its reliability. The findings reveal that this approach demonstrates good (ICC
> 0.75) to excellent (ICC
> 0.90) agreement in all temporal gait parameters except for double support time (right leg switched to left leg) and swing time (right), which only exhibit a moderate (ICC
> 0.50) agreement. Additionally, this approach produces temporal gait parameters with low mean absolute error. It will be useful in monitoring changes in gait and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions such as rehabilitation or training programs in the community.
The conceptual simulation study of DNA extraction and separation from salivary fluid sample are mainly divided into two parts. The initial study covered microfluidic channel design and effective DNA ...extraction by using mobilizing superparamagnetic (SPM) beads in COMSOL Multiphysics
®
software. The subsequent part presented simulation work for DNA separation from SPM beads in electromagnetization field. The main objective of this study in microfluidic platform in presence of electromagnetic field was to achieve higher and uncontaminated yield of DNA as sample preparation step which can be applied for clinical analysis. COMSOL Multiphysics
®
simulation software was used to study the entire work and presented in this paper with complete study steps. The attached DNA onto SPM beads was separated by specifying computational fluid dynamics in laminar flow, particle tracing module and electromagnetic field by using external electromagnetic coil as magnet array. Most of the SPM beads were captured and held by magnetic field when 100 mT/min was generated by electromagnetic coil. 82.01% of uncontaminated DNA yield from salivary fluid was able to separate from SPM beads after DNA extraction in microfluidic channel. In the absence of external magnetic field, the produced superparamagnetism enable SPM beads to flip in an isotropy provide efficient separation. The mechanical and chemical stability of silica surface of SPM beads provide an excellent chromatography separation medium for DNA sample preparation for further downstream analysis.
Automated brain tumor segmentation from reconstructed microwave (RMW) brain images and image classification is essential for the investigation and monitoring of the progression of brain disease. The ...manual detection, classification, and segmentation of tumors are extremely time-consuming but crucial tasks due to the tumor's pattern. In this paper, we propose a new lightweight segmentation model called MicrowaveSegNet (MSegNet), which segments the brain tumor, and a new classifier called the BrainImageNet (BINet) model to classify the RMW images. Initially, three hundred (300) RMW brain image samples were obtained from our sensors-based microwave brain imaging (SMBI) system to create an original dataset. Then, image preprocessing and augmentation techniques were applied to make 6000 training images per fold for a 5-fold cross-validation. Later, the MSegNet and BINet were compared to state-of-the-art segmentation and classification models to verify their performance. The MSegNet has achieved an Intersection-over-Union (IoU) and Dice score of 86.92% and 93.10%, respectively, for tumor segmentation. The BINet has achieved an accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and specificity of 89.33%, 88.74%, 88.67%, 88.61%, and 94.33%, respectively, for three-class classification using raw RMW images, whereas it achieved 98.33%, 98.35%, 98.33%, 98.33%, and 99.17%, respectively, for segmented RMW images. Therefore, the proposed cascaded model can be used in the SMBI system.
In obstetrics, fetal heart rate (FHR) detection remains the standard for intrapartum assessment of fetal well-being. In this paper, a low-power (<55 mW) optical technique is proposed for ...transabdominal FHR detection using near-infrared photoplesthysmography (PPG). A beam of IR-LED (890 nm) propagates through to the maternal abdomen and fetal tissues, resulting in a mixed signal detected by a low-noise detector situated at a distance of 4 cm. Low-noise amplification and 24-bit analog-to-digital converter resolution ensure minimum effect of quantization noise. After synchronous detection, the mixed signal is processed by an adaptive filter to extract the fetal signal, whereas the PPG from the mother's index finger is the reference input. A total of 24 datasets were acquired from six subjects at 37 plusmn 2 gestational weeks. Results show a correlation coefficient of 0.96 (p-value < 0.001) between the proposed optical and ultrasound FHR, with a maximum error of 4%. Assessment of the effect of probe position on detection accuracy indicates that the probe should be close to fetal tissues, but not necessarily restricted to head or buttocks.
Abstract
In this paper, proposes a microwave brain imaging system to detect brain tumors using a metamaterial (MTM) loaded three-dimensional (3D) stacked wideband antenna array. The antenna is ...comprised of metamaterial-loaded with three substrate layers, including two air gaps. One 1 × 4 MTM array element is used in the top layer and middle layer, and one 3 × 2 MTM array element is used in the bottom layer. The MTM array elements in layers are utilized to enhance the performance concerning antenna’s efficiency, bandwidth, realized gain, radiation directionality in free space and near the head model. The antenna is fabricated on cost-effective Rogers RT5880 and RO4350B substrate, and the optimized dimension of the antenna is 50 × 40 × 8.66 mm
3
. The measured results show that the antenna has a fractional bandwidth of 79.20% (1.37–3.16 GHz), 93% radiation efficiency, 98% high fidelity factor, 6.67 dBi gain, and adequate field penetration in the head tissue with a maximum of 0.0018 W/kg specific absorption rate. In addition, a 3D realistic tissue-mimicking head phantom is fabricated and measured to verify the performance of the antenna. Later, a nine-antenna array-based microwave brain imaging (MBI) system is implemented and investigated by using phantom model. After that, the scattering parameters are collected, analyzed, and then processed by the Iteratively Corrected delay-multiply-and-sum algorithm to detect and reconstruct the brain tumor images. The imaging results demonstrated that the implemented MBI system can successfully detect the target benign and malignant tumors with their locations inside the brain.
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