Over or under consumption of fluids can lead to discomfort and diseases. Monitoring fluid intake is important to make sure people are adequately hydrated. Current approaches for automatic fluid intake monitoring are obtrusive, expensive or maintenance prone. In this research, we propose an unobtrusive, maintenance free fluid intake monitoring system based on passive (batteryless), Ultra High Frequency (UHF), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology by attaching a single RFID tag to a drinking container. In particular, we employ Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and phase patterns embedded in the RFID data stream to recognize individual instances of natural drinking episodes. We conducted experiments in a realistic setting using broadly scripted activity routines with 8 young volunteers. Promising results achieved in this preliminary investigation is a strong indication of the possibility of employing passive RFID technology for monitoring fluid intake in particular for recognizing natural drinking episodes in real time.
['Asangi Jayatilaka', 'Damith Chinthana Ranasinghe']
Towards unobtrusive real-time fluid intake monitoring using passive UHF RFID