Wireless body sensor networks for health-monitoring applications

This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in Physiological Measurement. The publisher is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0967-3334/29/11/R01

An Implantable Low Pressure Biosensor Transponder

The human body’s intracranial pressure (ICP) is a critical element in sustaining healthy blood flow to the brain while allowing adequate volume for brain tissue within the relatively rigid structure of the cranium. Disruptions in the body’s maintenance of intracranial pressure are often caused by hemorrhage, tumors, edema, or excess cerebral spinal fluid resulting in treatments that are estimated to globally cost up to approximately five billion dollars annually. A critical element in the contemporary management of acute head injury, intracranial hemorrhage, stroke, or other conditions resulting in intracranial hypertension, is the real-time monitoring of ICP. Currently such monitoring can only take place short-term within an acute care hospital, is prone to measurement drift, and is comprised of externally tethered pressure sensors that are temporarily implanted into the brain, thus carrying a significant risk of infection. To date, reliable, low drift, completely internalized, long-term ICP monitoring devices remain elusive. In addition to being safer and more reliable in the short-term, such a device would expand the use of ICP monitoring for the management of chronic diseases involving ICP hypertension and further expand research into these disorders. This research studies the current challenges of existing ICP monitoring systems and investigates opportunities for potentially allowing long-term implantable bio-pressure sensing, facilitating possible improvements in treatment strategies. Based upon the research, this thesis evaluates piezo-resistive strain sensing for low power, sub-millimeter of mercury resolution, in application to implantable intracranial pressure sensing

An Implantable Low Pressure, Low Drift, Dual BioPressure Sensor and In-Vivo Calibration Methods Thereof

The human body’s intracranial pressure (ICP) is a critical component in sustaining healthy blood flow to the brain while allowing adequate volume for brain tissue within the rigid structures of the cranium. Disruptions in the body’s autoregulation of intracranial pressure are often caused by hemorrhage, tumors, edema, or excess cerebral spinal fluid resulting in treatments that are estimated to globally cost up to approximately five billion dollars annually. A critical element in the contemporary management of acute head injury, intracranial hemorrhage, stroke, or other conditions resulting in intracranial hypertension, is the real-time monitoring of ICP. Currently, such mainstream clinical monitoring can only take place short-term within an acute care hospital. The monitoring is prone to measurement drift and is comprised of externally tethered pressure sensors that are temporarily implanted into the brain, thus carrying a significant risk of infection. To date, reliable, low drift, completely internalized, long-term ICP monitoring devices remain elusive. The successful development of such a device would not only be safer and more reliable in the short-term but would expand the use of ICP monitoring for the management of chronic intracranial hypertension and enable further clinical research into these disorders. The research herein reviews the current challenges of existing ICP monitoring systems, develops a new novel sensing technology, and evaluates the same for potentially facilitating long-term implantable ICP sensing. Based upon the findings of this research, this dissertation proposes and evaluates a dual matched-die piezo-resistive strain sensing device, with a novel in-vivo calibration system and method thereof, for application to long-term implantable ICP sensing

A Three – tier bio-implantable sensor monitoring and communications platform

One major hindrance to the advent of novel bio-implantable sensor technologies is the need for a reliable power source and data communications platform capable of continuously, remotely, and wirelessly monitoring deeply implantable biomedical devices. This research proposes the feasibility and potential of combining well established, ‘human-friendly' inductive and ultrasonic technologies to produce a proof-of-concept, generic, multi-tier power transfer and data communication platform suitable for low-power, periodically-activated implantable analogue bio-sensors. In the inductive sub-system presented, 5 W of power is transferred across a 10 mm gap between a single pair of 39 mm (primary) and 33 mm (secondary) circular printed spiral coils (PSCs). These are printed using an 8000 dpi resolution photoplotter and fabricated on PCB by wet-etching, to the maximum permissible density. Our ultrasonic sub-system, consisting of a single pair of Pz21 (transmitter) and Pz26 (receiver) piezoelectric PZT ceramic discs driven by low-frequency, radial/planar excitation (-31 mode), without acoustic matching layers, is also reported here for the first time. The discs are characterised by propagation tank test and directly driven by the inductively coupled power to deliver 29 μW to a receiver (implant) employing a low voltage start-up IC positioned 70 mm deep within a homogeneous liquid phantom. No batteries are used. The deep implant is thus intermittently powered every 800 ms to charge a capacitor which enables its microcontroller, operating with a 500 kHz clock, to transmit a single nibble (4 bits) of digitized sensed data over a period of ~18 ms from deep within the phantom, to the outside world. A power transfer efficiency of 83% using our prototype CMOS logic-gate IC driver is reported for the inductively coupled part of the system. Overall prototype system power consumption is 2.3 W with a total power transfer efficiency of 1% achieved across the tiers

An Optofluidic Lens Biochip and an x-ray Readable Blood Pressure Microsensor: Versatile Tools for in vitro and in vivo Diagnostics.

Three different microfabricated devices were presented for use in vivo and in vitro diagnostic biomedical applications: an optofluidic-lens biochip, a hand held digital imaging system and an x-ray readable blood pressure sensor for monitoring restenosis. An optofluidic biochip–termed the ‘Microfluidic-based Oil-Immersion Lens’ (mOIL) biochip were designed, fabricated and test for high-resolution imaging of various biological samples. The biochip consists of an array of high refractive index (n = 1.77) sapphire ball lenses sitting on top of an oil-filled microfluidic network of microchambers. The combination of the high optical quality lenses with the immersion oil results in a numerical aperture (NA) of 1.2 which is comparable to the high NA of oil immersion microscope objectives. The biochip can be used as an add-on-module to a stereoscope to improve the resolution from 10 microns down to 0.7 microns. It also has a scalable field of view (FOV) as the total FOV increases linearly with the number of lenses in the biochip (each lens has ~200 microns FOV). By combining the mOIL biochip with a CMOS sensor, a LED light source in 3D printed housing, a compact (40 grams, 4cmx4cmx4cm) high resolution (~0.4 microns) hand held imaging system was developed. The applicability of this system was demonstrated by counting red and white blood cells and imaging fluorescently labelled cells. In blood smear samples, blood cells, sickle cells, and malaria-infected cells were easily identified. To monitor restenosis, an x-ray readable implantable blood pressure sensor was developed. The sensor is based on the use of an x-ray absorbing liquid contained in a microchamber. The microchamber has a flexible membrane that is exposed to blood pressure. When the membrane deflects, the liquid moves into the microfluidic-gauge. The length of the microfluidic-gauge can be measured and consequently the applied pressure exerted on the diaphragm can be calculated. The prototype sensor has dimensions of 1x0.6x10mm and adequate resolution (19mmHg) to detect restenosis in coronary artery stents from a standard chest x-ray. Further improvements of our prototype will open up the possibility of measuring pressure drop in a coronary artery stent in a non-invasively manner.PhDMacromolecular Science and EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111384/1/toning_1.pd

Sensors for Wireless Body Monitoring Applications

Body monitoring systems have recently drawn great attention to modern electronic consumers due to their various health−care and security applications. However, most of the existing monitoring systems need wire connections that prevent free body movements. Complementary metal−oxide−semiconductor (CMOS) technology based wireless sensor systems need integration of different components that make the device volume and production cost high. In adition, their dependency on on−sensor power source limits the continuous monitoring capability. In the thesis, to demonstrate the feasibility of low cost and simple body monitoring systems, we propose a near−infrared (NIR) photodetector (PD) and a humidity sensor (HS) using low−temperature thin−film processes suitable for large−area electronics application. For NIR detection, a novel lateral metal−semiconductor−metal (MSM) PD architecture is proposed using low−temperature nanocrystalline silicon (nc−Si) as a NIR absorption layer and organic polyimide (PI) as a blocking layer. Experimental results show that addition of PI layer reduces the dark current (ID) up to 103−105 times compared with the PDs without PI layer. Fabricated devices exhibit a low ID of ~10−10 A, a response time of <1.5 ms, and an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 35−15% for the 740−850 nm wavelengths of light under 100−150 V biasing conditions. Unlike the standard p−i−n PD, our high−performance lateral PD does not require doped p+ and n+ layers. Thus, the reported device is compatible with industry standard amorphous silicon (a−Si) thin−film transistor (TFT) fabrication process, which makes it promising for large−area full hand biometric imagers suitable for various non−invasive body monitoring applications. For humidity detection, a 30 mm diameter passive LC (p−LC) HS is formed by joining an octagonal planer inductor and a moisture sensitive interdigital zinc oxide (ZnO) capacitor in series. A PCB reader coil is also designed, which is able to sense the HS from <25 mm distance. The HS reads 30−90% of relative humidity (RH) by interrogating change of the resonance frequency (fR) of the reader−sensor system. The reading resolution is ±2.38%RH and the sensitivity is 53.33−93.33 kHz/1%RH for the above 45% RH measurements. Experimental results show that the proposed HS is operational in a range of 0−75 oC as long as recalibration is performed for a temperature drift of above ±3 oC, which makes it suitable for various promising applications operated at different temperatures. Above all, the presented results are promising for the continuous body monitoring applications to observe the humidity wirelessly without any power source on the sensor