Ultra-Wideband Transceiver with Error Correction for Cortical Interfaces in NanometerCMOS Process

This dissertation reports a high-speed wideband wireless transmission solution for the tight power constraints of cortical interface application. The proposed system deploysImpulse Radio Ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) technique to achieve very high-rate communication. However, impulse radio signals suffer from significant attenuation within the body,and power limitations force the use of very low-power receiver circuits which introduce additional noise and jitter. Moreover, the coils’ self-resonance has to be suppressed to minimize the pulse distortion and inter-symbol interference, adding significant attenuation. To compensate these losses, an Error correction code (ECC) layer is added for functioning reliably to the system. The performance evaluation is made by modeling a pair of physically fabricated coils, and the results show that the ECC is essential to obtain the system’s reliability. Furthermore, the gm/ID methodology, which is based on the complete exploration ofall inversion regions that the transistors are biased, is studied and explored for optimizingthe system at the circuit-level. Specific focuses are on the RF blocks: the low noise am-plifier (LNA) and the injection-locked voltage controlled oscillator (IL-VCO). Through the analytical deduction of the circuit’s features as the function of the gm/ID for each transistor, it is possible to select the optimum operating region for the circuit to achieve the target specification. Other circuit blocks, including the phase shifter, frequency divider,mixer, etc. are also described and analyzed. The prototype is fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS(Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) process

Contribuições às redes de comunicação pelo corpo humano: Modelagem de canal e projeto de um transceptor integrado

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Elétrica, Florianópolis, 2017.As redes de sensores sem fio (WSN) são uma tecnologia importante e consolidada em diversas áreas, desde monitoramento industrial à assistência médica, contudo, muitos desafios ainda persistem. Um destes desafios é o consumo de potência dos nós da rede, que é um fator limitante para criação de nós duráveis, desejáveis sobretudo em nós vestíveis e implantáveis. Em geral, em um nó sem fio, o bloco de comunicação apresenta o maior consumo do dispositivo. Para reduzir o consumo e aumentar a vida útil dos nós, além da otimização do projeto dos circuitos e da rede, novos métodos de comunicação podem ser utilizados. Neste sentido, a comunicação pelo corpo humano (HBC) tem atraído interesse tanto da academia quando da indústria como uma alternativa para implementar um subtipo das WSN, as redes sem fio corporais (WBAN). No HBC, o corpo humano é utilizado como o canal de comunicação. Um aspecto importante do desenvolvimento desta tecnologia é a caracterização do canal para permitir o projeto adequado dos transceptores. Com este objetivo, neste trabalho foram realizadas várias medições do canal HBC. A análise dos resultados experimentais, contudo, permitiu identificar uma influência não desprezível no perfil de frequência do canal e nos níveis de atenuação medidos. Estes efeitos, em geral, não são reconhecidos ou corrigidos por outros trabalhos encontrados na bibliografia, principalmente poque não podem ser removidos por métodos comuns de calibração ou de-embedding. Para entender e explicar os resultados de medição, são propostas uma metodologia para identificação das partes que compõem o canal e um modelo estendido para o canal, que inclui modelos para os acessórios de testes. A metodologia de identificação auxilia a diferenciação e a modelagem dos componentes essenciais do canal, que é feita por meio de modelos baseados em circuitos concentrados e distribuídos e permite identificar o comportamento esperado do canal primário real. O modelo estendido proposto é verificado com medições do canal e apresenta uma boa correlação com as medições. Este modelo é então utilizado no projeto de um transceptor HBC integrado, que buscou o baixo consumo e a capacidade de operação em banda larga, com múltiplos canais cobrindo a faixa de frequências entre 10-100 MHz do canal de comunicação. Com estes objetivos, projetou-se um transmissor BFSK de modulação direta, composto por um oscilador current starved controlado por tensão e um driver de saída, para acoplamento do sinal ao canal. O receptor é baseado na técnica de injection locking e emprega a conversão frequência-fase para demodulação banda larga do sinal, sendo composto por um amplificador de entrada push-pull, um oscilador current starved com injection locking controlado por tensão, um detector de fase tristate, um filtro RC e um conversor analógico digital. O transceptor foi projetado e fabricado em tecnologia CMOS 130 nm e possui cinco canais de comunicação na faixa entre 10-100 MHz, apresenta uma taxa de dados de 2 Mbps e uma taxa de erro de bit de 0,5.10-3 para sinais de -35,8 dBm no canal HBC. O consumo do transmissor é 6,6 mW e do receptor é 1,68 mW, alcançando a eficiência de comunicação de 3,3 nJ/bit e 0,84 nJ/bit, respectivamente, para uma tensão de alimentação de 1,2 V.Abstract : Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are a consolidated and important technology in several areas, from industrial monitoring to health care, however, many issues are open to be solved. One of the greatest challenges lies on the power consumption of the network nodes, which is a limiting factor for durable wearable and implantable devices. In most cases the communication block is the most power hungry section in the wireless node. To reduce power consumption and increase the node's lifetime, besides optimizing the transceiver hardware and network design, alternative communication methods can be employed. In this regard, Human body communication (HBC) has attracted growing interest from both academy and industry as an alternative to implement Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN). In HBC the human body is used as the communication channel. A very important aspect concerning the development of the HBC technology is the characterization of the channel for proper transceiver design. With this in mind, this work presents various channel measurements performed in the HBC channel to evaluate its behavior. From the measurement results, it is identified that the test fixtures affect the HBC measurements, changing the channel frequency profile and the channel attenuation levels. These issues were not identified or corrected in the literature studied, mostly because they cannot be removed by common calibration and de-embedding methods. To understand and explain the measured channel response, an channel identification methodology and an extended channel model, which includes the test fixtures models are proposed. The channel identification methodology aides the correct identification and modeling of the essential channel components using distributed and lumped circuit representations that provide a useful insight into the expected primary channel behavior. The proposed extended channel model is tested against channel measurement results and good correlation with experiments is obtained. The proposed primary channel model is then used for a more reliable transceiver design, which focused in lower power consumption and multi-band operation in the 10-100 MHz range of the channel. With these requirements, in the integrated HBC transmitter a direct modulation BFSk architecture is used, consisting of a voltage controlled current starved oscillator and an output driver, for coupling the signal to the channel. The HBC receiver is based on injection locking technique and does broadband demodulation with frequency-to-phase conversion. The receiver consists of a push-pull input amplifier, a voltage-controlled current starved oscillator, a tristate phase detector, a RC filter and analog to digital converter. The transceiver was designed and fabricated in CMOS 130 nm technology and has five communication channels in the range of 10-100 MHz, a data rate of 2 Mbps and a bit error rate of 0.5x10-3 for -35,8 dBm signals on the HBC channel. The transmitter and receiver power consumption are 6.6 mW and 1.68 mW, respectivelly, which enables a communication efficiency of 3.3 nJ/bit and 0.84 nJ/bit with a 1.2 V supply voltage

Signal-Processing-Driven Integrated Circuits for Energy Constrained Microsystems.

The exponential growth in IC technology has enabled low-cost and increasingly capable wireless sensor nodes which provide a promising way forward to realize the vision of a trillion connected sensors in the next decade. However there are still many design challenges ahead to make these sensor nodes small,low-cost,secure,reliable and energy-efficient to name a few. Since the wireless nodes are expected to operate on a limited energy source or in some cases on harvested energy, the energy consumption of each building block is of prime importance to prolong the life of a sensor node. It has been found that the radio communication when active has been one of the highest power consuming modules on a sensor node. Low-energy protocols, e.g. processing the raw sensor data on-node, are more energy efficient for some applications as compared to transmitting the raw data over a wireless channel to a cloud server. In this thesis we explore signal processing techniques to realize a low power radio solution for wireless communication. Two prototype chips have been designed and their performance has been evaluated. The first prototype chip exploits compressed sensing for Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) communication. UWB signals typically require a high ADC sampling rate in the receiver which results in high power consumption. Compressed sensing is demonstrated to relax the ADC sampling rate to save power. The second prototype chip exploits the sensitivity vs. power trade-off in a radio receiver to achieve iso-performance at lower power consumption and the time-varying wireless channel characteristics are used to adapt the sampling frequency of the receiver based on the SNR/Link quality of the communication channel, saving power, while maintaining the desired system performance. It is envisioned that embedded machine learning will play a key role in the integration of sensory data with prior knowledge for distributed intelligent sensing which might enable reduced wireless network traffic to a cloud server. A Near-Threshold hardware accelerator for arbitrary Bayesian network was designed for clique-tree message passing algorithm used for probabilistic inference. The hardware accelerator was benchmarked by the mid-size ALARM Bayesian network with total energy consumption of 76nJ for 250µS execution time.PhDElectrical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107130/1/oukhan_1.pd

Real-Time Sensor Networks and Systems for the Industrial IoT

The Industrial Internet of Things (Industrial IoT—IIoT) has emerged as the core construct behind the various cyber-physical systems constituting a principal dimension of the fourth Industrial Revolution. While initially born as the concept behind specific industrial applications of generic IoT technologies, for the optimization of operational efficiency in automation and control, it quickly enabled the achievement of the total convergence of Operational (OT) and Information Technologies (IT). The IIoT has now surpassed the traditional borders of automation and control functions in the process and manufacturing industry, shifting towards a wider domain of functions and industries, embraced under the dominant global initiatives and architectural frameworks of Industry 4.0 (or Industrie 4.0) in Germany, Industrial Internet in the US, Society 5.0 in Japan, and Made-in-China 2025 in China. As real-time embedded systems are quickly achieving ubiquity in everyday life and in industrial environments, and many processes already depend on real-time cyber-physical systems and embedded sensors, the integration of IoT with cognitive computing and real-time data exchange is essential for real-time analytics and realization of digital twins in smart environments and services under the various frameworks’ provisions. In this context, real-time sensor networks and systems for the Industrial IoT encompass multiple technologies and raise significant design, optimization, integration and exploitation challenges. The ten articles in this Special Issue describe advances in real-time sensor networks and systems that are significant enablers of the Industrial IoT paradigm. In the relevant landscape, the domain of wireless networking technologies is centrally positioned, as expected

Advanced Trends in Wireless Communications

Physical limitations on wireless communication channels impose huge challenges to reliable communication. Bandwidth limitations, propagation loss, noise and interference make the wireless channel a narrow pipe that does not readily accommodate rapid flow of data. Thus, researches aim to design systems that are suitable to operate in such channels, in order to have high performance quality of service. Also, the mobility of the communication systems requires further investigations to reduce the complexity and the power consumption of the receiver. This book aims to provide highlights of the current research in the field of wireless communications. The subjects discussed are very valuable to communication researchers rather than researchers in the wireless related areas. The book chapters cover a wide range of wireless communication topics

Cooperative Radio Communications for Green Smart Environments

The demand for mobile connectivity is continuously increasing, and by 2020 Mobile and Wireless Communications will serve not only very dense populations of mobile phones and nomadic computers, but also the expected multiplicity of devices and sensors located in machines, vehicles, health systems and city infrastructures. Future Mobile Networks are then faced with many new scenarios and use cases, which will load the networks with different data traffic patterns, in new or shared spectrum bands, creating new specific requirements. This book addresses both the techniques to model, analyse and optimise the radio links and transmission systems in such scenarios, together with the most advanced radio access, resource management and mobile networking technologies. This text summarises the work performed by more than 500 researchers from more than 120 institutions in Europe, America and Asia, from both academia and industries, within the framework of the COST IC1004 Action on "Cooperative Radio Communications for Green and Smart Environments". The book will have appeal to graduates and researchers in the Radio Communications area, and also to engineers working in the Wireless industry. Topics discussed in this book include: • Radio waves propagation phenomena in diverse urban, indoor, vehicular and body environments• Measurements, characterization, and modelling of radio channels beyond 4G networks• Key issues in Vehicle (V2X) communication• Wireless Body Area Networks, including specific Radio Channel Models for WBANs• Energy efficiency and resource management enhancements in Radio Access Networks• Definitions and models for the virtualised and cloud RAN architectures• Advances on feasible indoor localization and tracking techniques• Recent findings and innovations in antenna systems for communications• Physical Layer Network Coding for next generation wireless systems• Methods and techniques for MIMO Over the Air (OTA) testin