Ultra-Wideband CMOS Transceiver Front-End for Bio-Medical Radar Sensing

Since the Federal Communication Commission released the unlicensed 3.1-10.6 GHz frequency band for commercial use in early 2002, the ultra wideband (UWB) has developed from an emerging technology into a mainstream research area. The UWB technology, which utilizes wide spectrum, opens a new era of possibility for practical applications in radar sensing, one of which is the human vital sign monitoring. The aim of this thesis is to study and research the possibility of a new generation humanrespiration monitoring sensor using UWB radar technology and to develop a new prototype of UWB radar sensor for system-on-chip solutions in CMOS technology. In this thesis, a lowpower Gaussian impulse UWB mono-static radar transceiver architecture is presented. The UWB Gaussian pulse transmitter and receiver are implemented and fabricated using 90nm CMOS technology. Since the energy of low order Gaussian pulse is mostly condensed at lower frequency, in order to transmit the pulse in a very efficient way, higher order Gaussian derivative pulses are desired as the baseband signal. This motivates the advancement of the design into UWB high-order pulse transmitter. Both the Gaussian impulse UWB transmitter and Gaussian higher-order impulse UWB transmitter take the low-power and high-speed advantage of digital circuit to generate different waveforms. The measurement results are analyzed and discussed. This thesis also presents a low-power UWB mono-static radar transceiver architecture exploiting the full benefit of UWB bandwidth in radar sensing applications. The transceiver includes a full UWB band transmitter, an UWB receiver front-end, and an on-chip diplexer. The non-coherent UWB transmitter generates pulse modulated baseband signals at different carrier frequencies within the designated 3-10 GHz band using a digitally controlled pulse generator. The test shows the proposed radar transceiver can detect the human respiration pattern within 50 cm distance. The applications of this UWB radar sensing solution in commercialized standard CMOS technology include constant breathing pattern monitoring for gated radiation therapy, realtime monitoring of patients, and any other breathing monitoring. The research paves the way to wireless technology integration with health care and bio-sensor network

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationSince the late 1950s, scientists have been working toward realizing implantable devices that would directly monitor or even control the human body's internal activities. Sophisticated microsystems are used to improve our understanding of internal biological processes in animals and humans. The diversity of biomedical research dictates that microsystems must be developed and customized specifically for each new application. For advanced long-term experiments, a custom designed system-on-chip (SoC) is usually necessary to meet desired specifications. Custom SoCs, however, are often prohibitively expensive, preventing many new ideas from being explored. In this work, we have identified a set of sensors that are frequently used in biomedical research and developed a single-chip integrated microsystem that offers the most commonly used sensor interfaces, high computational power, and which requires minimum external components to operate. Included peripherals can also drive chemical reactions by setting the appropriate voltages or currents across electrodes. The SoC is highly modular and well suited for prototyping in and ex vivo experimental devices. The system runs from a primary or secondary battery that can be recharged via two inductively coupled coils. The SoC includes a 16-bit microprocessor with 32 kB of on chip SRAM. The digital core consumes 350 μW at 10 MHz and is capable of running at frequencies up to 200 MHz. The integrated microsystem has been fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS technology and the silicon has been fully tested. Integrated peripherals include two sigma-delta analog-to-digital converters, two 10-bit digital-to-analog converters, and a sleep mode timer. The system also includes a wireless ultra-wideband (UWB) transmitter. The fullydigital transmitter implementation occupies 68 x 68 μm2 of silicon area, consumes 0.72 μW static power, and achieves an energy efficiency of 19 pJ/pulse at 200 MHz pulse repetition frequency. An investigation of the suitability of the UWB technology for neural recording systems is also presented. Experimental data capturing the UWB signal transmission through an animal head are presented and a statistical model for large-scale signal fading is developed

Ultra Wideband

Ultra wideband (UWB) has advanced and merged as a technology, and many more people are aware of the potential for this exciting technology. The current UWB field is changing rapidly with new techniques and ideas where several issues are involved in developing the systems. Among UWB system design, the UWB RF transceiver and UWB antenna are the key components. Recently, a considerable amount of researches has been devoted to the development of the UWB RF transceiver and antenna for its enabling high data transmission rates and low power consumption. Our book attempts to present current and emerging trends in-research and development of UWB systems as well as future expectations

Smart Devices and Systems for Wearable Applications

Wearable technologies need a smooth and unobtrusive integration of electronics and smart materials into textiles. The integration of sensors, actuators and computing technologies able to sense, react and adapt to external stimuli, is the expression of a new generation of wearable devices. The vision of wearable computing describes a system made by embedded, low power and wireless electronics coupled with smart and reliable sensors - as an integrated part of textile structure or directly in contact with the human body. Therefore, such system must maintain its sensing capabilities under the demand of normal clothing or textile substrate, which can impose severe mechanical deformation to the underlying garment/substrate. The objective of this thesis is to introduce a novel technological contribution for the next generation of wearable devices adopting a multidisciplinary approach in which knowledge of circuit design with Ultra-Wide Band and Bluetooth Low Energy technology, realization of smart piezoresistive / piezocapacitive and electro-active material, electro-mechanical characterization, design of read-out circuits and system integration find a fundamental and necessary synergy. The context and the results presented in this thesis follow an “applications driven” method in terms of wearable technology. A proof of concept has been designed and developed for each addressed issue. The solutions proposed are aimed to demonstrate the integration of a touch/pressure sensor into a fabric for space debris detection (CApture DEorbiting Target project), the effectiveness of the Ultra-Wide Band technology as an ultra-low power data transmission option compared with well known Bluetooth (IR-UWB data transmission project) and to solve issues concerning human proximity estimation (IR-UWB Face-to-Face Interaction and Proximity Sensor), wearable actuator for medical applications (EAPtics project) and aerospace physiology countermeasure (Gravity Loading Countermeasure Skinsuit project)

Bidirectional Wireless Telemetry for High Channel Count Optogenetic Microsystems

In the past few decades, there has been a significant progress in the development of wireless data transmission systems, from high data rate to ultra-low power applications, and from G-b per second to RFID systems. One specific area, in particular, is in wireless data transmission for implantable bio-medical applications. To understand how brain functions, neural scientists are in pursuit of high-channel count, high-density recordings for freely moving animals; yet wire tethering issue has put the mission on pause. Wireless data transmission can address this tethering problem, but there are still many challenges to be conquered. In this work, an ultra-low power ultra-wide band (UWB) transmitter with feedforward pulse generation scheme is proposed to resolve the long-existing problem in UWB transmitter. It provides a high-data rate capability to enable 1000 channels in broadband neural recording, assuming 10-bit resolution with a sampling rate of 20 kHz to accommodate both action potential (AP) and local field potential (LFP) recording, while remaining in ultra- low power consumption at 4.32 pJ/b. For the bi-directional communication between the wireless and recording/ stimulating module, a bit-wise time-division (B-TDD) duplex transceiver without cancellation scheme is presented. The receiver works at U-NII band (5.2GHz) and shares the same antenna with UWB transmitter. This significantly reduces the area consumption as well as power consumption for implantable systems. The system can support uplink at 200 Mbps for 1000 recording channels and downlink at 10 Mbps for 36 stimulation channels. With a 3.7 Volt 25mAh rechargeable battery, the system should be able to operate more than 1.5 hours straight for both recording and stimulation, assuming 1 LED channel with 100 µA, 10% duty-cycled stimulating current. The B-TDD transceiver is integrated with a dedicated recording/ stimulation optogenetic IC chip to demonstrate as a complete wireless system for implantable broadband optogenetic neural modulation and recording. The fully integrated system is less than 5 gram, which is suitable for rodent experiments.PHDElectrical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155242/1/yujulin_1.pd

Digital ADCs and ultra-wideband RF circuits for energy constrained wireless applications by Denis Clarke Daly.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2009.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-183).Ongoing advances in semiconductor technology have enabled a multitude of portable, low power devices like cellular phones and wireless sensors. Most recently, as transistor device geometries reach the nanometer scale, transistor characteristics have changed so dramatically that many traditional circuits and architectures are no longer optimal and/or feasible. As a solution, much research has focused on developing 'highly digital' circuits and architectures that are tolerant of the increased leakage, variation and degraded voltage headrooms associated with advanced CMOS processes. This thesis presents several highly digital, mixed-signal circuits and architectures designed for energy constrained wireless applications. First, as a case study, a highly digital, voltage scalable flash ADC is presented. The flash ADC, implemented in 0.18 [mu]m CMOS, leverages redundancy and calibration to achieve robust operation at supply voltages from 0.2 V to 0.9 V. Next, the thesis expands in scope to describe a pulsed, noncoherent ultra-wideband transceiver chipset, implemented in 90 nm CMOS and operating in the 3-to-5 GHz band. The all-digital transmitter employs capacitive combining and pulse shaping in the power amplifier to meet the FCC spectral mask without any off-chip filters. The noncoherent receiver system-on-chip achieves both energy efficiency and high performance by employing simple amplifier and ADC structures combined with extensive digital calibration. Finally, the transceiver chipset is integrated in a complete system for wireless insect flight control.(cont.) Through the use of a flexible PCB and 3D die stacking, the total weight of the electronics is kept to 1 g, within the carrying capacity of an adult Manduca sexta moth. Preliminary wireless flight control of a moth in a wind tunnel is demonstrated.Ph.D

A 3.1-4.8GHz IR-UWB All-Digital Pulse Generator in 0.13-um CMOS Technology for WBAN Systems

Analog, Digital & RF Circuit DesignImpulse Radio Ultra-WideBand (IR-UWB) systems have drawn growing attention for wireless sensor networks such as Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) and Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) systems ever since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released the spectrum between 3.1 and 10.6GHz for unlicensed use in 2002. The restriction on transmitted power spectral density in this band is equal to the noise emission limit of household digital electronics. This band is also shared with several existing service, therefore in-band interference is expected and presents a challenge to UWB system design. UWB devices as secondary spectrum users must also detect and avoid (DAA) other licensed users from the cognitive radio???s point of view. For the DAA requirement, it is more effective to deploy signal with variable center frequency and a minimum 10dB bandwidth of 500MHz than a signal covering the entire UWB spectrum range with fixed center frequency. A key requirement of the applications using IR-UWB signal is ultra-low power consumption for longer battery life. Also, cost reduction is highly desirable. Recently, digital IR-UWB pulse generation is studied more than analog approach due to its lower power consumption. An all-digital pulse generator in a standard 0.13-um CMOS technology for communication systems using Impulse Radio Ultra-WideBand (IR-UWB) signal is presented. A delay line-based architecture utilizing only static logic gates and leading lower power consumption for pulse generation is proposed in this thesis. By using of all-digital architecture, energy is consumed by CV2 switching losses and sub-threshold leakage currents, without RF oscillator or analog bias currents. The center frequency and the fixed bandwidth of 500MHz of the output signal can be digitally controlled to cover three channels in low band of UWB spectrum. Delay based Binary Shift Keying (DB-BPSK) and Pulse Position Modulation (PPM) schemes are exploited at the same time to modulate the transmitted signals with further improvement in spectrum characteristics. The total energy consumption is 48pJ/pulse at 1.2V supply voltage, which is well suitable for WBAN systems.ope