Low-Power Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) Communication System

NASA seeks semi-passive, RFIDenabled wearable tags for inventory tracking and astronaut body area network applications. Wearable sensor tags can be printed on astronaut clothing or suits, and are powered by printed thin film batteries and/or via energy harvesting. Energy is harvested by flexible solar cells or from the kinetic energy of the astronaut’s motion by minimizing the power requirement of the suit electronics. A tag antenna functions while being flexed or bent, which normally occurs with clothing. Tags communicate with the astronaut body area network. The functions of the RFID system can be extended to include low-data-rate telemetry for bio-monitoring utilizing wearable RFID-enabled biosensors.