An Apparatus, Method and
System for sensing Chemical and Biological information and converting said information into the electronic digital domain for
relay in a
radio frequency identification (RFID) tag embedded in a
dielectric medium. The apparatus consists of two parts; 1) a single coordinator apparatus providing power, control,
signal processing and communications functions wirelessly to 2) a large number of chemical and temperature sensor tags embedded in a lossy
dielectric medium that do not contain batteries and cannot function without the coordinator apparatus. The coordinator apparatus further acts as a digital information bridge to outside systems with the data obtained from the large number of sensor tags to the
system. A First Method using said apparatus whereby the single coordinator apparatus synchronizes and provides clocking for and commands a large number of sensor tags and further queries the large number of sensor tags simultaneously and the digital representation of a concentration of a chemical or biological
analyte acting on each sensor or temperature of the sensor apparatus are collectively obtained. A Second Method utilizes a plurality of sensor apparatus containing analog to digital
converters in conjunction with said chemical and biological reversible chemoresistive sensors to transmit encoded chemical and biological information to a single
signal processing function over
radio frequency electromagnetic
waves utilizing
code division multiple access whereby only the ID number of those sensor apparatus measuring a higher value than a variable reference value transmit simultaneously. An arithmetic despreading operation is performed so that a probability that a given set of sensor tags is measuring a value higher value than a variable reference value is obtained. The variable reference value for the set is assigned a bit weight competing the chemical, or temperature to
digital conversion process. In succeeding operations, the Second Method may vary the variable reference value at each of the sensor apparatus to form a successive approximation of the chemical, or temperature to
digital conversion information. A Third Method for optimally adjusting the electrical characteristics to match the physical characteristics of the
dielectric medium is provided. A
System whereby organizes said plurality of sensor tags each reporting chemical, biological and temperature information into a colony whereby said
system obtains data from thousands of Colony Member tags thereby harvested by the Colony Coordinators and further the data from thousands of Colony whereby the
System organizes groups of these Colonies each reporting chemical, biological and temperature information into Groups of Colony whereby the System
decodes the temperature chemical and biological information and processes the information from each of the Colony Member sensor tags in a time correlated
database to form an electronic digital domain representation of said chemical, biological and temperature information for further analysis. Said System formats the
time series database based on the interpreted chemical and biological information for
relay back to a decision point thus creating actionable intelligence of decay at the
carton and item level. Thereby using the above, Apparatus, Method and System collecting data from inside an electrical dielectric medium of interest for the temperature, concentration of a chemical or biological
analyte located physically inside each
carton or item and relaying this data to external information processes the object of the invention is thus fulfilled.