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Novel Stepped Impedance With Interdigital Capacitance RF Sensor For Blood Glucose Continuous Monitoring

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Abstract

Diabetes is a growing chronic disease that affects millions of people in the world. Regular monitoring of blood glucose levels in patients is necessary to keep the disease under control. Current methods of blood glucose monitoring devices are typically invasive, finger pricking to extract blood, causing discomfort to the patients. A non-invasive glucose monitoring device is a possible game-changer for diabetic patients as it reduces discomfort and provides continuous monitoring. The interdigital sensor has been implemented in various field of applications such as microwave device, a chemical sensor and biological sensor. This work also describes the design and fabrication of an interdigital sensor (IDT) design that has the potential of estimating blood glucose levels using capacitive measurements. Stepped Impedance Resonator was designed to improve the qualities of the sensor by removing the noise and increase the value of Q-factor. The IDT was first designed using theoretical equations and later was optimized by using CST Microwave Studio®. Upon completion of simulations, the sensor was fabricated using copper clad FR4 boards. The fabricated sensors were measured using RF analyzer (RFA). The coplanar interdigital sensor would produce an electric field that penetrates the material under test and will detect the changes in dielectric constant. Stepped impedance resonator was designed with IDT sensor to remove noise from the IDT performance and increase the value of Q-factor of the frequency response. A microfluidic device structure that imitates the real vessel structure on human hand was fabricated to measure the change in glucose concentration. Glucose concentration was varied from 0 to 240 mg/dL and test with the IDT sensor. IDT sensor was measured using RF analyzer to find the S11 parameter and frequency response. The graph of the relationship between the frequency change response against the sample glucose concentration was plotted. As the glucose concentration was increased, the frequency is also increased, shifting the resonance frequency of the S11 measurement to the right side after each concentration changed. The trendline line from the curve was added to find the sensitivity (slope) and the limit of detection (LOD) of the sensor. The result shows that the detection sensitivity of the biosensor is 264.2 kHz/mgdL-1 and LOD calculated to be at 29.89 mg/dL.

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