How to transform an Aortic Valve Prostheses into an UHF antenna for the RFID-based Wireless Monitoring of the Cardiac Health

Heart valve replacement is one of the most common life-saving surgery procedures. Although valve prostheses can restore heart functionality and life expectations, they often suffer from structural deterioration that can lead to the failure of the implant. Conventional diagnostic tools include minimally invasive and operator-dependent examinations. Alternative remote monitoring paradigms would be extremely useful for evaluating the valve status from outside the body and for the early detection of possible failure. In the framework of Health 4.0 this paper proposes a method to extract an antenna mode out of an aortic valve so that it can be provided with communication capability without any need of battery. By minimal modifications of the mechanical layout, the valve integrates an RFID sensing IC capable to passively sample the temperature in the surrounding tissues and communicate with an external reader. Numerical simulations and early experimental tests demonstrate the feasibility of the communication link.