RFID sensors as the common sensing platform for single-use biopharmaceutical manufacturing

The lack of reliable single-use sensors prevents the biopharmaceutical industry from fully embracing single-use biomanufacturing processes. Sensors based on the same detection platform for all critical parameters in single-use bioprocess components would be highly desirable to significantly simplify their installation, calibration and operation. We review here our approach for passive radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based sensing that does not rely on costly proprietary RFID memory chips with an analog input but rather implements ubiquitous passive 13.56 MHz RFID tags as inductively coupled sensors with at least 16 bit resolution provided by a sensor reader. The developed RFID sensors combine several measured parameters from the resonant sensor antenna with multivariate data analysis and deliver unique capability of multiparameter sensing and rejection of environmental interferences with a single sensor. This general sensing approach provides an elegant solution for both analytical measurement and identification and documentation of the measured location.