An incontinence alarm solution utilizing RFID based sensor technology

The current work addresses the challenge of measuring urine volume in diapers primarily targeting geriatric care applications. There are number of incontinence alarm innovations suggested and described in patents and scientific reports. However, there are hardly any reports of such systems in permanent use in the hospital care market. One reason might be the challenging system requirements of such applications. According to our own experiences and requirements reported in the literature those are truly demanding. We need meter long communication range, passive sensor functionality, robust and safe measurement, unobtrusive sensor device design (patient) and a convenient reader and user interface (care personal). The list of specifications can be added to, a very low price adding only a small fraction to the over all diaper cost. Finally the system should improve the comfort of the patient and increase diaper management efficiency, reducing the costs of the care provider. The recent progress and usage of RFID technology have reduced the cost levels for inlays and readers. Thus, standard RFID inlays may be a candidate providing the targeted functionality in a smart diaper. In this work we evaluate the possibility to use the RFID antenna as the sensor element when detecting when a diaper has reached a certain degree of urine saturation. The evaluation has been done in a laboratory setup, with real test persons providing authentic readout scenarios.