Maximizing Data Transmission Rate for Implantable Devices Over a Single Inductive Link: Methodological Review

Adaptive wireless-powered network based on CNN near-field positioning by a dual-band metasurface

With the improvement of industry, the connectivity of electronic devices gradually shift from wired to wireless. As a solution for power delivery, the non-contact power transfer holds promising ways to charge for moving terminals, enabling battery-free sensing, processing, and communication. Based on a dual-band metasurface, this study proposes an adaptive wireless-powered network (AWPN) to realize the simultaneous wireless localization and non-contact power supply. It first achieves localization with 3 cm resolution on a single-input single-output (SISO) system, by combining space-time-coding (STC) and convolutional neural network (CNN). With precise position information, AWPN real-time aligns power beams to the terminals for stable energy transmission. Then, battery-free terminals enable to perceive the environmental data and uploads the results. From the measurement results, AWPN gets more than 98% CNN classification accuracy and can tolerate certain environmental changes. Thus, being adaptive and contactless, our study will propel the advancement in Internet of Things (IoT), intelligent metasurface, and the robot industry.

Multi-resonator Wireless Inductive Power Link for Wearables on the 2D Surface and Implants in 3D Space of the Human Body

This paper presents a novel resonance-based, adaptable, and flexible inductive wireless power transmission (WPT) link for powering implantable and wearable devices throughout the human body. The proposed design provides a comprehensive solution for wirelessly delivering power, sub-micro to hundreds of milliwatts, to deep-tissue implantable devices (3D space of human body) and surface-level wearable devices (2D surface of human skin) safely and seamlessly. The link comprises a belt-fitted transmitter (Belt-Tx) coil equipped with a power amplifier (PA) and a data demodulator unit, two resonator clusters (to cover upper-body and lower-body), and a receiver (Rx) unit that consists of Rx load and resonator coils, rectifier, microcontroller, and data modulator units for implementing a closed-loop power control (CLPC) mechanism. All coils are tuned at 13.56 MHz, Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-approved industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band. Novel customizable configurations of resonators in the clusters, parallel for implantable devices and cross-parallel for wearable devices and vertically oriented implants, ensure uniform power delivered to the load, PDL, enabling natural Tx power localization toward the Rx unit. The proposed design is modeled, simulated, and optimized using ANSYS HFSS software. The Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) is calculated under 1.5 W/kg, indicating the design's safety for the human body. The proposed link is implemented, and its performance is characterized. For both the parallel cluster (implant) and cross-parallel cluster (wearable) scenarios, the measured results indicate: 1) an upper-body PDL exceeding 350 mW with a Power Transfer Efficiency (PTE) reaching 25%, and 2) a lower-body PDL surpassing 360 mW with a PTE of up to 20%, while covering up to 92% of the human body.

A Highly Miniaturized, Chronically Implanted ASIC for Electrical Nerve Stimulation

We present a wireless, fully implantable device for electrical stimulation of peripheral nerves consisting of a powering coil, a tuning network, a Zener diode, selectable stimulation parameters, and a stimulator IC, all encapsulated in biocompatible silicone. A wireless RF signal at 13.56 MHz powers the implant through the on-chip rectifier. The ASIC, designed in TSMC's 180 nm MS RF G process, occupies an area of less than 1.2 mm². The IC enables externally selectable current-controlled stimulation through an on-chip read-only memory with a wide range of 32 stimulation parameters (90-750 µA amplitude, 100 µs or 1 ms pulse width, 15 or 50 Hz frequency). The IC generates the constant current waveform using an 8-bit binary weighted DAC and an H-Bridge. At the most power-hungry stimulation parameter, the average power consumption during a stimulus pulse is 2.6 mW with a power transfer efficiency of ∼5.2%. In addition to benchtop and acute testing, we chronically implanted two versions of the device (a design with leads and a leadless design) on two rats' sciatic nerves to verify the long-term efficacy of the IC and the full system. The leadless device had the following dimensions: height of 0.45 cm, major axis of 1.85 cm, and minor axis of 1.34 cm, with similar dimensions for the device with leads. Both devices were implanted and worked for experiments lasting from 21-90 days. To the best of our knowledge, the fabricated IC is the smallest constant-current stimulator that has been tested chronically.

An Energy-Efficient ASK Demodulator Robust to Power-Carrier-Interference for Inductive Power and Data Telemetry

Wireless power and datatelemetry based on amplitude-shift keying (ASK) modulation over dual inductive links has been widely adopted in biomedical implants. Due to the mutual inductance between the power and data links, the large power-carrier-interference (PCI) will inevitably cause low signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) of the received signal, thereby increasing the bit-error-rate (BER) of the ASK demodulation. In this paper, an innovative high energy-efficient ASK demodulator robust to PCI has been proposed. Thanks to the proposed sampling-and-subtraction (SAS) architecture, the demodulator is capable of withstanding PCI with an amplitude up to 2.5 times as the data carrier without the need for any high-order filters. The prototype has been implemented with 180 nm standard CMOS process, occupying a core area of 0.51 mm ². The experimental results show that with 1 Mbps data rate and 13.56 MHz carrier frequency, the typical BER is less than 1.3×10 ^-3, while the energy efficiency is 280 pJ/bit, showing 7.5× improvement compared to the prior works. The energy-efficient robustness to PCI demonstrates the potential of the technique to be applied to retina prostheses as well as various kinds of ultra-low-power implantable biomedical devices.

A Wireless Power and Data Transfer IC for Neural Prostheses Using a Single Inductive Link With Frequency-Splitting Characteristic

This paper presents a frequency-splitting-based wireless power and data transfer IC that simultaneously delivers power and forward data over a single inductive link. For data transmission, frequency-shift keying (FSK) is utilized because the FSK modulation scheme supports continuous wireless power transmission without disruption of the carrier amplitude. Moreover, the link that manifests the frequency-splitting characteristic due to a close distance between coupled coils provides wide bandwidth for data delivery without degrading the quality factors of the coils. It results in large power delivery, high data rate, and high power transfer efficiency. The presented IC fabricated in a 180-nm BCD process simultaneously achieves up-to-115-mW wireless power delivery to the load and 2.5-Mb/s downlink data rate over the single inductive link. The measured overall power efficiency from the DC power supply at the transmitter module to the load at the receiver module reaches 56.7 % at its maximum, and the bit error rate is lower than 10 ^-6 at 2.5 Mb/s. As a result, the figure of merit (FoM) for data transmission is enhanced by 2 times, and the FoM for power delivery is improved by 38.7 times compared to prior state-of-the-arts using a single inductive link.

An ASK Data Demodulator Circuit for Implantable Medical Devices Supporting a Minimum Modulation Depth of 0.034

Amplitude shift keying (ASK) data demodulation method has been widely used for simultaneous wireless data and power transfer in implantable medical devices (IMDs). Small amplitude modulation depth (MD) is usually preferred as it helps promote energy harvesting efficiency. This paper presents an ASK data demodulator that has good immunity to disturbances and can demodulate ultra-low MD ASK signal. A three-stage amplifying structure (3SAS) is proposed, in which the common-mode level of each amplifier is set between the high and low levels of its input signal envelope to prevent amplifier gain saturation and maximize the amplification of the envelope difference. Two envelope detectors (EDs) are used before and after the 3SAS respectively. The first one is to obtain a coarse envelope for 3SAS input and the second one is to further suppress the residual carrier interference and get a fine envelope. The proposed demodulator is implemented in 0.18-μm high-voltage Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) technology. The detectable MD is measured as low as 0.034%, showing that the proposed demodulator can work smoothly and robustly in some extreme cases of simultaneous data and power transferring.Clinical Relevance- The ASK data demodulator proposed in this paper supports ultra-low modulation depth. This reduces the bit error rate of the data link and keeps a highly power conversion efficiency for wireless power and data transfer in implantable medical devices.

Fundamental Trade-Offs Between Power and Data Transfer in Inductive Links for Biomedical Implants

This paper studies the fundamental trade-offs between power transfer efficiency (PTE) and spectral efficiency that occur during simultaneous power and data transfer through near-field inductive links. A mathematical analysis is used to establish the relationship between PTE and channel capacity as a function of link parameters such as coupling coefficient ( k), load resistance, and surrounding environment. The analysis predicts that the optimum trade-off between power and data transfer is particularly dependent on k, which is a monotonically-decreasing function of axial distance ( d) between the coils. Real-time adaptation of the link parameters (such as load resistance and modulation type) is proposed to automatically optimize the power-data trade-off over a wide range of distances and coupling coefficients. A bench-top prototype of such an adaptive link is demonstrated at a center frequency of 13.56 MHz. The prototype uses an ultrasound transducer to measure d with accuracy  mm, and uses this information to autonomously optimize both data rate (up to  ∼ 50 Mbps) and PTE (up to  ∼ 25%) as the coil-coil distance varies within the 4-15 mm range.

Clinical and Research Solutions to Manage Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Review

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a common sleep disorder disease, affects millions of people. Without appropriate treatment, this disease can provoke several health-related risks including stroke and sudden death. A variety of treatments have been introduced to relieve OSA. The main present clinical treatments and undertaken research activities to improve the success rate of OSA were covered in this paper. Additionally, guidelines on choosing a suitable treatment based on scientific evidence and objective comparison were provided. This review paper specifically elaborated the clinically offered managements as well as the research activities to better treat OSA. We analyzed the methodology of each diagnostic and treatment method, the success rate, and the economic burden on the world. This review paper provided an evidence-based comparison of each treatment to guide patients and physicians, but there are some limitations that would affect the comparison result. Future research should consider the consistent follow-up period and a sufficient number of samples. With the development of implantable medical devices, hypoglossal nerve stimulation systems will be designed to be smart and miniature and one of the potential upcoming research topics. The transcutaneous electrical stimulation as a non-invasive potential treatment would be further investigated in a clinical setting. Meanwhile, no treatment can cure OSA due to the complicated etiology. To maximize the treatment success of OSA, a multidisciplinary and integrated management would be considered in the future.

A Modified Wireless Power Transfer System for Medical Implants

Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) is a promising technique, yet still an experimental solution, to replace batteries in existing implants and overcome the related health complications. However, not all techniques are adequate to meet the safety requirements of medical implants for patients. Ensuring a compromise between a small form factor and a high Power Transfer Efficiency (PTE) for transcutaneous applications still remains a challenge. In this work, we have used a resonant inductive coupling for WPT and a coil geometry optimization approach to address constraints related to maintaining a small form factor and the efficiency of power transfer. Thus, we propose a WPT system for medical implants operating at 13.56 MHz using high-efficiency Complementary Metal Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) components and an optimized Printed Circuit Coil (PCC). It is divided into two main circuits, a transmitter circuit located outside the human body and a receiver circuit implanted inside the body. The transmitter circuit was designed with an oscillator, driver and a Class-E power amplifier. Experimental results acquired in the air medium show that the proposed system reaches a power transfer efficiency of 75.1% for 0.5 cm and reaches 5 cm as a maximum transfer distance for 10.67% of the efficiency, all of which holds promise for implementing WPT for medical implants that don’t require further medical intervention, and without taking up a lot of space.