An Energy-Efficient, Dynamic Voltage Scaling Neural Stimulator for a Proprioceptive Prosthesis

Accepted versio

Towards a micropositioning system for targeted drug delivery in wireless capsule endoscopy

This paper describes a novel micropositioning mechanism for achieving 1ml of targeted drug delivery within wireless capsule endoscopes. The mechanism allows a needle to be positioned within a 22.5° segment of a cylindrical capsule and be extendible by up to 4mm. The mechanism achieves both these functions using only a single micromotor and occupying a volume of just 200mm³ (including micromotor), this represents only 6.6% of the total available space. Through a detailed stress analysis it has been shown that the proposed mechanism can be fabricated using FDA approved materials and requires a power budget of under 3.3% of the available capacity. It is envisaged this mechanism would empower a new breed of capsule microrobots for therapy in addition to diagnostics for pathologies such as ulcerative colitis and small intestinal Crohn’s disease.Accepted versio

An Ultra-Low-Power Front-End Neural Interface with Automatic Gain for Uncalibrated Monitoring

Accepted versio

A compact targeted drug delivery mechanism for a next generation wireless capsule endoscope

This paper reports a novel medication release and delivery mechanism as part of a next generation wireless capsule endoscope (WCE) for targeted drug delivery. This subsystem occupies a volume of only 17.9mm3 for the purpose of delivering a 1 ml payload to a target site of interest in the small intestinal tract. An in-depth analysis of the method employed to release and deliver the medication is described and a series of experiments is presented which validates the drug delivery system. The results show that a variable pitch conical compression spring manufactured from stainless steel can deliver 0.59 N when it is fully compressed and that this would be sufficient force to deliver the onboard medication

Computationally efficient modeling of proprioceptive signals in the upper limb for prostheses: a simulation study.

Accurate models of proprioceptive neural patterns could one day play an important role in the creation of an intuitive proprioceptive neural prosthesis for amputees. This paper looks at combining efficient implementations of biomechanical and proprioceptor models in order to generate signals that mimic human muscular proprioceptive patterns for future experimental work in prosthesis feedback. A neuro-musculoskeletal model of the upper limb with 7 degrees of freedom and 17 muscles is presented and generates real time estimates of muscle spindle and Golgi Tendon Organ neural firing patterns. Unlike previous neuro-musculoskeletal models, muscle activation and excitation levels are unknowns in this application and an inverse dynamics tool (static optimisation) is integrated to estimate these variables. A proprioceptive prosthesis will need to be portable and this is incompatible with the computationally demanding nature of standard biomechanical and proprioceptor modelling. This paper uses and proposes a number of approximations and optimisations to make real time operation on portable hardware feasible. Finally technical obstacles to mimicking natural feedback for an intuitive proprioceptive prosthesis, as well as issues and limitations with existing models, are identified and discussed

An Energy-Efficient, Dynamic Voltage Scaling Neural Stimulator for a Proprioceptive Prosthesis

Accepted versio

Nano-power mixed-signal tunable edge-detection circuit for pixel-level processing in next generation vision systems

Accepted versio

Towards a bio-inspired mixed-signal retinal processor

Published versio