Sens-o-Spheres - A concept for location independent acquisition of process measurement signals

To address the problems of classical measurement methods for biotechnological processes, this paper presents a new concept for a location independent, fully autarkical, minimally disrupting measuring technique. A new device, the so called Sens-o-Spheres (Fig. 1), is introduced. Small spherical sensors with a diameter below 8 mm are brought into such processes instead of using conventional electrodes. The battery inside the sphere has to be charged wirelessly in order to avoid electrical connections. Thus, a power antenna is designed within the sphere. To be position independent during the charging process and also to increase usability, a multicoil charging pipe in combination with an intelligent control system is studied. A second antenna dedicated to the communication within the sphere is integrated in order to transmit the measured data towards an outside receiver station. After the spheres are awaked through a wake up procedure, they are applied via a handheld devic e into the predefined process (e. g. shaking flask or bioreactor) and can measure wirelessly physical and biochemical parameters like temperature.