It is shown here that microwave sensors can be used to monitor glucose in serum concentration with minimum detectable as well as resolution of 1 mMol ·L ^-1 ( ≈ 18 mg ·dL ^-1 ). The ultrasensitive detection technique relies on a split ring resonator, operating at the frequency of 1.156 GHz, as the core of the sensor where its loss is compensated to enhance the quality factor from ~ 190 (passive mode) to ~ 3850 (active mode) to enable high resolution (modified frequency detection error from ±12 kHz down to ±2.5 kHz) frequency-shift sensing. Initially, glucose concentrations of 100-1000 mMol ·L ^-1 (1800-18000 mg ·dL ^-1 ) in water were detected within 250 kHz of dynamic range (between two spectrum ends). Selectivity of the sensor to glucose is verified with respect to common interstitial fluid ingredients with biological levels. Finally, to enhance the resolution of the proposed sensor, its loss-compensation is further improved leading to increased accuracy of measuring glucose samples in a 0.9 % NaCl solution containing 10 % horse serum that closely resembles blood plasma and interstitial fluid. This allows exploration of lower concentrations in the physiological range 1-30 mMol ·L ^-1 (18-540 mg ·dL ^-1 ) with improved frequency detection error down to ±0.75 kHz for two cases of with/without serum solutions with dynamic range of 30 kHz/38 kHz. The highly accurate glucose monitoring technique could be utilized for developing noninvasive glucose sensors for biomedical applications in real-time glucose monitoring.

A novel flow sensor is presented to measure the flow rate within microchannels in a real-time, noncontact and nonintrusive manner. The microfluidic device is made of a fluidic microchannel sealed with a thin polymer layer interfacing the fluidics and microwave electronics. Deformation of the thin circular membrane alters the permittivity and conductivity over the sensitive zone of the microwave resonator device and enables high-resolution detection of flow rate in microfluidic channels using non-contact microwave as a standalone system. The flow sensor has the linear response in the range of 0–150 µl/min for the optimal sensor performance. The highest sensitivity is detected to be 0.5 µl/min for the membrane with the diameter of 3 mm and the thickness of 100 µm. The sensor is reproducible with the error of 0.1% for the flow rate of 10 µl/min. Furthermore, the sensor functioned very stable for 20 hrs performance within the cell culture incubator in 37 °C and 5% CO₂ environment for detecting the flow rate of the culture medium. This sensor does not need any contact with the liquid and is highly compatible with several applications in energy and biomedical engineering, and particularly for microfluidic-based lab-on-chips, micro-bioreactors and organ-on-chips platforms.

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology has the potential of replacing many of the radio frequency (RF) components used in to day's satellite communication systems. In many cases, such RF MEMS components would not only substantially reduce size, weight, and power consumption, but also promise superior performance when compared to that of current technologies. The benefits of MEMS technology be come more pronounced for switch matrices because there is a large number of switching elements and, therefore, any size and mass reduction would have large overall impact. Though there has been some controversy on the reliability and lifetime of RF MEMS switches, significant improvements have been made and RF switches with billions of switching cycles have been demonstrated. This article describes the potential applications of RF MEMS switch matrices in the satellite industry, where mass reduction and performance improvement is crucial.

A novel electromagnetic sensor operating at microwave frequencies with quality factor of 22,000 at 1.4 GHz for real-time sensing of fluid properties is presented. The core of the sensor has a planar microstrip resonator, which is enhanced using an active feedback loop. The resonance frequency and quality factor of the sensor show clear differentiation between analytes composed of common solvents. To evaluate the sensor for water based concentration detection, we have demonstrated that KOH dilutions as low as 0.1 mM are detectable. The proposed sensor has advantages of inexpensiveness and high resolution as well as capability for miniaturization and CMOS compatibility.