Research Projects

Capsule endoscopy represents the future of digestive tract examination, offering a non-surgical alternative to traditional endoscopy. Unlike the conventional method, which uses a flexible plastic tube equipped with a camera and light source for internal imaging, capsule endoscopy eliminates the need for invasive insertion through the mouth or anus. The traditional approach, while effective, often causes discomfort and poses a risk of injury to the delicate tissues of the digestive tract. Capsule endoscopy, by contrast, ensures a safer, pain-free diagnostic experience with greater patient comfort and reduced procedural risks. Because of this, capsule endoscopy is the only possible solution to overcome such problems. Capsule endoscopic device consists of an antenna sensor system, camera and light source integrated over a single chip. The capsule can be swallowed easily without any painful or uncomfortable procedure. The control over the movement of the endoscopic device and the communication link between the endoscopic device and the outside world can be easily established using the antenna system. Such endoscopic devices require miniaturized antenna sensor systems. However, the volumetric size, impedance bandwidth, and radiation efficiency need to be balanced with the reduced antenna size. Balanced antenna sensor miniaturization can be achieved using the radiating element or a highly primitive substrate. However, the high substrate permittivity makes the impedance matching complex. A metamaterial can overcome these limitations, which will boost the antenna's impedance matching, bandwidth, efficiency and gain. The radiating element slotting can further reduce the size of the system. However, the size reduction causes an increase in current density, increasing the specific absorption rate (SAR) value, which is not at all acceptable in biomedical devices. SAR value can be reduced by using metamaterial designs, resonation design and encapsulation material optimization. Additionally, replacing the material of radiating elements with novel engineering materials such as Graphene and carbon nanotube can reduce the SAR value. In view of all these aspects of capsule endoscopic design, we will develop the human tissue-mimicking phantom to characterize the capsule endoscopy antenna system first and then design and fabricate the low SAR biocompatible microstrip patch antenna sensor-assisted capsule endoscopic device. Further, we will design and deposit the ISM band-specific biocompatible radiating element and absorber for reducing the SAR of the microstrip patch antenna sensor using various SAR reduction schemes. At last, we will test the performance of the biocompatible capsule endoscopic system.