Evaluation of off-the-shelf NFC devices for biomedical applications

Non-invasive wearable devices will be a crucial building block for the majority of biomedical systems that aim at monitoring humans biomedical parameters over a long time span. Their massive adoption in applications like continuous workers monitoring or daily monitoring of patients requires a design that minimizes discomfort and does not limit humans mobility. To this aim, the next generation of wearable devices will be required to be equipped without batteries or with very small batteries in order to ensure a significant reduction in their size. In this paper we investigate the possibility of adopting Near Field Communication (NFC) for ultra-low-power communication in order to reduce the energy consumption of wearable devices. Specifically, we evaluate the current status of off-the-shelf NFC devices through real experiments to measure their capabilities with respect to the possibility of adopting such technology into wearable devices. Commercial NFC devices designed with energy harvesting capabilities are also evaluated in order to assess the potential to obtain battery-less wearable devices with also computing capabilities. Our results showed that commercial devices can ensure proper frequencies and distances, making possible their adoption in different biomedical applications and use-cases, which are reviewed and analyzed.