A pulsed coding technique based on optical UWB modulation for high data rate low power wireless implantable biotelemetry

Abstract

This paper reports on a novel pulsed coding technique based on optical UWB modulation for wireless implantable biotelemetry systems allowing for high data rate link whilst enabling significant power reduction compared to the state-of-the-art. This data coding approach is suitable for emerging biomedical applications like transcutaneous neural wireless communication systems. The overall architecture implementing this optical modulation technique employs sub-nanosecond pulsed laser as data transmitter and small sensitive area photodiode as data receiver. Moreover, it includes coding and decoding digital systems, biasing and driving analogue circuits for laser pulse generation and photodiode signal conditioning. The complete system has been implemented on FPGA and prototype PCB with discrete off-the-shelf components. By inserting a diffuser between the transmitter and the receiver to emulate skin/tissue, the system is capable to achieve a 128Mbps data rate with a bit error rate less than 10^-9 and an estimated total power consumption of about 5mW corresponding to a power efficiency of 35.9pJ/bit. These results could allow, for example, the transmission of an 800-channel neural recording interface sampled at 16kHz with 10-bit resolution.