Low power wireless ultra-wide band transmission of bio-signals

The paper shows the design of microelectronic circuits composed of an oscillator, a modulator, a transmitter and an antenna. Prototype chips were recently fabricated and tested exploiting commercial 130 nm [1] and 180 nm [2,3] CMOS technologies. Detected signals have been measured using a commercial Ultra-Wide-Band amplifier connected to custom designed filters and a digital demodulator. Preliminary results are summarized along with some waveforms of the transmitted and received signals. A digital Synchronized On-Off Keying (S-OOK) was implemented to exploit the Ultra-Wide-Band transmission. In this way, each transmitted bit is coded with a S-OOK protocol. Wireless transmission capabilities of the system have been also evaluated within a one-meter distance. The chips fit a large variety of applications like spot radiation monitoring, punctual measurements of radiation in High-Energy Physics experiments or, since they have been characterized as low-power components, readout of the system for medical applications. These latter fields are those that we are investigating for in-vivo measurements on small animals. In more detail, if we refer to electromyographic, electrocardiographic or electroencephalographic signals [4], we need to handle very small signal amplitudes, of the order of tens of μV, overwhelmed with a much higher (white) noise. In these cases the front-end of the readout circuit requires a so-called amplifier for instrumentation, here not described, to interface with metal-plate sensor's outputs such those used for electrocardiograms, to normal range of amplitude signals of the order of 1 V. We are also studying these circuits, to be also designed on a microelectronic device, without adding further details since these components are technically well known in the literature [5,6]. The main aim of this research is hence integrating all the described electronic components into a very small, low-powered, microelectronic circuit fully compatible with in-vivo applications.