A Periodic Transmission Line Model for Body Channel Communication

Body channel communication (BCC) is a technique for data transmission exploiting the human body as communication channel. Even though it was pioneered about 25 years ago, the identification of a good electrical model behind its functioning is still an open research question. The proposed distributed model can then serve as a supporting tool for the design, allowing to enhance the performances of any BCC system. A novel finite periodic transmission line model was developed to describe the human body as transmission medium. According to this model, for the first time, the parasitic capacitance between the transmitter and the receiver is assumed to depend on their distance. The parameters related to the body and electrodes are acquired experimentally by fitting the bio-impedentiometric measurements, in the range of frequencies from 1 kHz to 1 MHz, obtaining a mean absolute error lower than 4° and 30Ω for the phase angle and impedance modulus, respectively. The proposed mathematical framework has been successfully validated by describing a ground-referred and low-complexity system called Live Wire, suitable as supporting tool for visually impaired people, and finding good agreement between the measured and the calculated data, marking a ±3% error for communication distances ranging from 20 to 150 cm. In this work we introduced a new circuital approach, for capacitive-coupling systems, based on finite periodic transmission line, capable to describe and model BCC systems allowing to optimize the performances of similar systems

A Periodic Transmission Line Model for Body Channel Communication

Body channel communication (BCC) is a technique for data transmission exploiting the human body as communication channel. Even though it was pioneered about 25 years ago, the identification of a good electrical model behind its functioning is still an open research question. The proposed distributed model can then serve as a supporting tool for the design, allowing to enhance the performances of any BCC system. A novel finite periodic transmission line model was developed to describe the human body as transmission medium. According to this model, for the first time, the parasitic capacitance between the transmitter and the receiver is assumed to depend on their distance. The parameters related to the body and electrodes are acquired experimentally by fitting the bio-impedentiometric measurements, in the range of frequencies from 1 kHz to 1 MHz, obtaining a mean absolute error lower than 4° and 30 $Omega$ for the phase angle and impedance modulus, respectively. The proposed mathematical framework has been successfully validated by describing a ground-referred and low-complexity system called Live Wire, suitable as supporting tool for visually impaired people, and finding good agreement between the measured and the calculated data, marking a ±3% error for communication distances ranging from 20 to 150 cm. In this work we introduced a new circuital approach, for capacitive-coupling systems, based on finite periodic transmission line, capable to describe and model BCC systems allowing to optimize the performances of similar systems

Engineering cytocompatible conducting polymers for bio-related energy applications

Portable, wearable and implantable medical devices (IMDs) can be used to solve various clinical problems such as monitoring of chronic diseases or artificial organ transplantation. Current available IMDs are generally powered by an energy source with a strong case for absolute encapsulation. It would be ideal to minimise the size and volume of the power source for users’ comfort by removing the strong case if the employed materials and by-products are safe for the body. In this thesis, two types of cytocompatible conducting polymers have been fabricated via facial chemical synthesis methods for use in bio-related energy sources that are capable of providing energy with the use of simulated body fluids. They are polypyrrole/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PPy/PEDOT) hydrogel and asymmetric polypyrrole (PPy) membrane. The demonstrated bio-related energy systems include a bioelectric battery and an energy harvesting system

Communication and energy delivery architectures for personal medical devices

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-232).Advances in sensor technologies and integrated electronics are revolutionizing how humans access and receive healthcare. However, many envisioned wearable or implantable systems are not deployable in practice due to high energy consumption and anatomically-limited size constraints, necessitating large form-factors for external devices, or eventual surgical re-implantation procedures for in-vivo applications. Since communication and energy-management sub-systems often dominate the power budgets of personal biomedical devices, this thesis explores alternative usecases, system architectures, and circuit solutions to reduce their energy burden. For wearable applications, a system-on-chip is designed that both communicates and delivers power over an eTextiles network. The transmitter and receiver front-ends are at least an order of magnitude more efficient than conventional body-area networks. For implantable applications, two separate systems are proposed that avoid reimplantation requirements. The first system extracts energy from the endocochlear potential, an electrochemical gradient found naturally within the inner-ear of mammals, in order to power a wireless sensor. Since extractable energy levels are limited, novel sensing, communication, and energy management solutions are proposed that leverage duty-cycling to achieve enabling power consumptions that are at least an order of magnitude lower than previous work. Clinical measurements show the first system demonstrated to sustain itself with a mammalian-generated electrochemical potential operating as the only source of energy into the system. The second system leverages the essentially unlimited number of re-charge cycles offered by ultracapacitors. To ease patient usability, a rapid wireless capacitor charging architecture is proposed that employs a multi-tapped secondary inductive coil to provide charging times that are significantly faster than conventional approaches.by Patrick Philip Mercier.Ph.D

MAGNESIUM-TITANIUM ALLOYS FOR BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS

Magnesium has been identified as a promising biodegradable implant material because it does not cause systemic toxicity and can reduce stress shielding. However, it corrodes too quickly in the body. Titanium, which is already used ubiquitously for implants, was chosen as the alloying element because of its proven biocompatibility and corrosion resistance in physiological environments. Thus, alloying magnesium with titanium is expected to improve the corrosion resistance of magnesium. Mg-Ti alloys with a titanium content ranging from 5 to 35 at.-% were successfully synthesized by mechanical alloying. Spark plasma sintering was identified as a processing route to consolidate the alloy powders made by ball-milling into bulk material without destroying the alloy structure. This is an important finding as this metastable Mg-Ti alloy can only be heated up to max. 200C° for a limited time without reaching the stable state of separated magnesium and titanium. The superior corrosion behavior of Mg80-Ti20 alloy in a simulated physiological environment was shown through hydrogen evolution tests, where the corrosion rate was drastically reduced compared to pure magnesium and electrochemical measurements revealed an increased potential and resistance compared to pure magnesium. Cytotoxicity tests on murine pre-osteoblastic cells in vitro confirmed that supernatants made from Mg-Ti alloy were no more cytotoxic than supernatants prepared with pure magnesium. Mg and Mg-Ti alloys can also be used to make novel polymer-metal composites, e.g., with poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) to avoid the polymer’s detrimental pH drop during degradation and alter its degradation pattern. Thus, Mg-Ti alloys can be fabricated and consolidated while achieving improved corrosion resistance and maintaining cytocompatibility. This work opens up the possibility of using Mg-Ti alloys for fracture fixation implants and other biomedical applications