Patent ID: 7171312

Claim:
A biological agent detection apparatus, comprising: a substrate; an array of two or more sensors arranged on the substrate, wherein at least a first one of the sensors includes a sensing element configured to detect a biological agent; a power module for supplying power to the detection apparatus; a pick-up antenna, wherein the power is supplied by an external RF field received by the antenna; a processing module directly coupled to each of the sensors and configured to process signals received from the two or more sensors to produce an output signal; and a communication module configured to provide information to a user in response to the output signal having a value at or above a threshold value, wherein the array of two or more sensors includes: an activating unit configured to activate only one of said two or more sensors at any point in time, in order to reduce power consumption of the apparatus, wherein the activating unit comprises: at least one shift register for selectively accessing one of the two or more sensors; decoding circuitry for decoding an output of the at least one shift register; a switch for receiving the decoded outputs of the decoding circuitry, and for toggling a current based on the decoded outputs; and a resistive sensor element for receiving the toggled current, wherein the toggled current is utilized to access only one of the two or more sensors at any point in time.