GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY

Development of wearable sensors for point-of-contact, near-real time monitoring of exposure to enviromental chemical species is critical to the success of studies of diverse populations. The demand for these sensors is driven by the yet unmet need for wearable sensors to simultaneously and selectively measure multiple analytes with negligible power consumption. In this program, GE Global Research team will meet these requirements for wearable sensors through the development of a new sensing platform that will dramatically decrease the complexity of accurate monitoring of airborne toxicants such as volatile organic compounds as well as reducing and oxidizing gases. The proposed sensor system will employ a novel sensing approach recently developed at GE Global Research that utilizes resonant antenna structures of passive inductively coupled radio-frequency identification (RFID) sensors with organic electronic films that will serve as analyte-sensing coatings. This new sensing approach will provide selective quantitation of toxic volatile species with sub-ppm detection limits in presence of uncontrolled variations of ambient humidity. This response selectivity will be achieved not with an array of these sensors but with a single sensor. Such capability will be accomplished by capitalizing on (1) recognition of vapors by new sensing materials, (2) new design of sensor transducer to fully probe these vapor-material interactions, and (3) multivariate analysis of the complex impedance response of the resonance sensor antenna structure. Developed sensors will be interrogated by a matchbox-sized, wearable sensor reader that will relate the findings to a local base station for a long-range transmission. The assembled research team has significant and recognized practical knowledge in chemical sensor design, synthesis of organic electronic polymers, low-power RF communications, and multivariate signal processing. This expertise will be coupled with key preliminary results that will facilitate the success of the proposed program. An unmet need for wearable sensors to simultaneously and selectively measure multiple analytes with negligible power consumption is a strong driving force in the development of new sensing concepts. This new sensing approach will provide a wearable, cost-effective, selective sensor for detection of toxic volatile species. Relevance: An unmet need for wearable sensors to simultaneously and selectively measure multiple analytes with negligible power consumption is a strong driving force in the development of new sensing concepts which are critical to the success of studies of diverse populations. In the proposed program, the team will employ a novel sensing approach that utilizes resonant antenna structures of passive inductively coupled radio-frequency identification (RFID) sensors with new sensing films. This new sensing approach will provide a wearable, cost-effective, selective sensor for detection of toxic volatile species.

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