Wireless Ultra-Wide Band Transmission of (Bio)Signals

The paper describes the study, design, fabrication and test of microelectronic circuits used to exploit Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) wireless communication for bio-medical applications. In particular, it is here described a prototype Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) composed of a modulator, a high-frequency oscillator and a transmitter. Other prototype circuits were recently fabricated and tested exploiting commercial 130nm and 180nm CMOS technologies. Wireless transmitted signals have been detected and measured by a receiver circuit that we have built up using a commercial wide-band amplifier connected to custom designed filters and a digital demodulator. Preliminary results are summarized along with some waveforms of the transmitted and received signals, as a validation of the feasibility of the system. In particular, wireless transmission capabilities of the system have been evaluated within a one-meter of transmission distance. The main aim of this research is to study the possibility to integrate all the described electronic components into a very small, low-powered, microelectronic circuit fully compatible to bio-medical (and in-vivo) applications. Nonetheless, the use of external sensors can spread the variety of applications of the device, as it is basically independent of the physical parameter sensed by the sensor. In addition, this study exploits a Synchronous On-Off Keying (S-OOK) modulation within the UWB transmission: this is a novel type of transmission for such small -1mm2 - devices, which make them suitable also to in-vivo applications.