Abstract—The current evolution of the traditional medical model
toward the participatory medicine can be boosted by the Internet of
Things (IoT) paradigm involving sensors (environmental, wearable,
and implanted) spread inside domestic environments with the
purpose to monitor the user’s health and activate remote assistance.
RF identification (RFID) technology is now mature to provide
part of the IoT physical layer for the personal healthcare in
smart environments through low-cost, energy-autonomous, and
disposable sensors. It is here presented a survey on the state-ofthe-
art of RFID for application to bodycentric systems and for
gathering information (temperature, humidity, and other gases)
about the user’s living environment. Many available options are
described up to the application level with some examples of RFID
systems able to collect and process multichannel data about the
human behavior in compliance with the power exposure and sanitary
regulations. Open challenges and possible new research trends
are finally discussed.