News from the ECE Department
Subscribe to the ECE News and Calendar RSS Feed
April 12th, 2011
Defense: William Smith
UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
THESIS DEFENSE FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE
by
Anthony William Smith
Advisor: Reid Harrison
Improved Data Transmission via Inductive Link for Neural Recording Devices
Fully integrated, implantable, and wireless neural interface systems typically require a forward data link in addition to the telemetry link that transmits data from the chip. One popular way to create this forward data link is to amplitude modulate the magnetic field of the inductive link that provides the device with wireless power. However, the limitations of these channels when loaded with a rectifier and amplitude modulated have not previously been characterized, and this lack of understanding caused previous versions of the Integrated Neural Interface (INI) to have forward data communication issues, which needed to be corrected for the next generation of the device, INIR8. This thesis first develops an analytical method of characterizing this sort of wireless channel. It then shows measurements data that verifies the validity of the model in the desired region of operation. The available bandwidth as determined by this analytical method, and confirmed by simulation, is insufficient for many applications. Therefore, the next subject of this thesis is to increase the data rate beyond what the bandwidth of the system can intrinsically support by using an equalization technique. This technique is shown to support very robust data recovery under a variety of operating conditions and to data rates much higher than otherwise possible. Another way to improve the reliability of data recovery is to develop a robust digital control system with error detection capabilities. This was done for INIR8, and works very reliably. The end result of this effort is a very robust forward data communication in INIR8, as well as a new analytical method for characterizing inductively coupled channels with certain loads and modulation techniques.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
1:30 p.m.
Mechanical Engineering Conference Room
2109 MEB
The public is invited