Benedetta Nodari

Radon fast detection and environmental monitoring with a portable wireless system

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have already classified radon as a human carcinogen and have demonstrated a correlation between environmental radon concentration and lung cancer risk. Radon dosimetry supplies valuable information about radioactive health risks in indoor environments. Dose measurements are traditionally based on laboratory analysis of alpha-ray traces in ionization chambers exposed to environmental air or passive detectors based on polycarbonate material. The main goal of this work is to develop a portable and small system with real-time indoor Radon detection capabilities. The developed system, with embedded processing and wireless communication capabilities, is based on a Zinc-Sulfat screen coupled to a Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) transducer, low cost read-out electronics and system ventilation. The device is able to monitor environmental data, so it could have multiple uses in research and industrial applications.

Development of a potentially implantable pressure sensing platform with RFID interface

This work deals with the development of an active RFID tag, ISO 15693 compliant, aimed to monitor blood pressure continuously and to determine its minimum and maximum values with an embedded algorithm. The results are stored onboard in a non-volatile memory, providing the data under interrogation by means of an external RFID reader. The prototype which has been developed is a miniaturized and low-power pressure sensing platform that is mainly intended as a potentially implantable system in test animals for pharmacological research, but could also operate in environmental and industrial applications.

An inertial and environmental wireless platform with advanced energy harvesting capabilities

This work presents neMEMSi-TEG, an ultra-low power MEMS based inertial and magnetic platform with embedded processing and wireless communication capabilities. The platform embeds an advanced energy management IC that allows an extremely high efficiency energy harvesting suitable for low-power and miniaturized Thermoelectric Generators. This paper aims to provide a description of the architecture of the system, the embedded orientation estimation algorithm and the performance in terms of power consumption and orientation accuracy.