Chapter 6 - SiC RF Antennas for In Vivo Glucose Monitoring and WiFi Applications

Abstract

Approved continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems require the insertion of a needle-like device inside the body that lasts up to 7 days and also requires several finger prick calibrations per day. This chapter describes an alternative for CGM systems based on the remote sensing of glucose-related changes in an implanted SiC-based antenna sensor. Earlier we demonstrated that a 4H–SiC-based antenna operating at 10 GHz will experience a shift in resonant frequency as a function of change in glucose levels. A shift of 97 and 67 kHz per 1 mg/dL change in blood glucose was observed in blood-mimicking liquid and pig blood, respectively. The antenna has now been redesigned for the industrial, scientific, and medical radio band, suitable for medical applications, and tested in a platform design composed of two additional antennas to enable remote sensing. This radio frequency identification approach does not require contact with patient interstitial fluid, thus solving the short time of use issue with present day implantable CGM sensors. The correlation between the external reflected signals with the variations of shift of the parameters of the implanted antenna are recorded and analyzed to determine patient glucose level in real time.