Professor John Batchelor
About
Research interests
Following an EPSRC Foresight Manufacturing Fellowship, John’s current research is concerned with the design and manufacture of wearable wireless technologies and low power systems for the Internet of Things. His work is primarily funded by EPSRC, the European Commission and by Industrial Contract. He is Principal Investigator on EPSRC project EP/P027075/1, ‘Passively Powered Non-invasive Human Body Sensing on Bio-Degradable Conformal Substrates’, EP/R02331X/1, ‘Formulating and Manufacturing Low Profile Integrated Batteries for Wireless Sensing Labels’ and EP/S020160/1, ‘MultiSense - Devising and Manufacturing mm-Wave High Data Rate Low Latency On-Skin Technologies. These projects aim to develop inkjet printed passive wireless sensing RFID tags on challenging substrates and are both in collaboration with inkjet specialists at the University of Manchester, and The Centre for Process Innovation.
These projects are developing printed label format wireless sensors for long term monitoring of ECG, movement, and other bio-applications, as well as off-body applications such as environmental sensing and power monitoring for smart metering. These low-profile integrated sensors are being developed for roll-to-roll manufacture based on printed electronics. The sensors are either passive, or are assisted by printed batteries which are integrated into the label substrate. We have demonstrated data rates sufficient to stream bio-waveforms over UHF RFID links and are now investigating mmWave bands to enable high capacity data over parallel channels. We are also investigating new pop-up structures for sensing purposes for integration with these low power sensors.
John's RFID transfer tattoo design was highly commended in the IET 2011 innovation awards and he was a co-investigator on the EPSRC project AART-BC (Assistive, Adaptive and Rehabilitative Technologies - Beyond the Clinic). This project was a collaboration with the universities of Warwick, York, Cardiff, UCL, Oxford Brookes and Salford. The focus was the development of a platform to monitor the use of AT and compliance with RP and support the patient outside of the clinic.
Other EPSRC funded collaborations have developed human scanned avatars to evaluate body-centric wireless channels (with Sheffield University), bodyworn antenna designs in the form of Jeans buttons (with Dr Benito Sanz-Izquierdo), RFID transfer tattoos, Frequency Selective Surfaces for spectrum control and frequency re-use within buildings (with Manchester and Auckland Universities) and LTCC Surface Integrated Waveguide Antennas for mm-wave systems (with Surrey University).
Teaching
Teaching responsibilities include:
Introduction to Electronics (first year)
Microwave Circuit Design (second year)
Mobile Transmission Systems (third year)
Antennas for Modern Communications (third year)
Mobile Antennas and Propagation (MSc)