Cyber-Tooth: Antennified Dental Implant for RFID Wireless Temperature Monitoring

The implantation of devices and prostheses is considerably rising in recent years. When an implanted medical prosthesis is equipped with a local wireless sensor, an early-onset identification of possible infections could be achieved. This paper proposes a method to transform a metallic dental implant into an antenna integrating a temperature UHF RFID sensor. A sensorized add-on disk, fully embedded in the dental implant’s crown, collects the external interrogating electromagnetic field and transforms the implant itself into a top-excited dipole. After simulations, a preliminary prototype of the resulting Cyber-Tooth is experimented with a near-filed interrogation by means of an on-cheek antenna. Results are promising for the establishment of a robust backscattering link, as a good margin in the link budget is achievable with further improvements in the tuning of the disk harvester.