Challenges of Wirelessly Managing Power and Data for Implantable Bioelectronics

Mohamad Sawan / Persyval-Lab

Emerging implantable biosystems (IBS) for diagnostic and recovery of neural vital functions are promising alternative to study neural activities underlying cognitive functions and pathologies. Following a summary of undertaken IBS projects (neuroprosthesis and Lab-on-chio devices) dealing with spike an ion based neurorecording and neurostimulation, this talk covers the architecture of typical device and employed main building blocks, with a focus on the RF parts including both the recovery of energy to power up used IBS and the bidirectional data interface for its real-time operation. Due to numerous health limits, currently employed techniques to harvest energy are not convenient for bioengineering applications. Among these scavenging energy methods such as cantilevers movement, structure vibration, temperature, and bio-energy based techniques (Action-potentials, Glucose, Enzymes,..), all remains inefficient. Also, rechargeable batteries and other electrochemical energy converters, electricity/heat generation from reaction of Hydrogen and Oxygen are also not convenient for security issues. The energy transfer techniques requiring transcutaneous RF inductive powering are the choice and will then be elaborated. Attention to multi-technology use facilitating integration in chips of required high-voltage low-power RF front-end will be described.  In addition to well-established inductive links, facts impacting on power efficiency and reliability such as signal conditioning, active rectifiers, various types of DC/DC converters, voltage regulators, custom integrated circuitries, calibration techniques, multidimensional implementation challenges (power management, low-power consumption circuits, high-data rate communication modules, small-size, low-weight and reliable devices), and custom integrated circuitries will be described.

Mohamad Sawan received the Ph.D. degree in 1990 in EE Dept., from Sherbrooke University, Canada. He joined Polytechnique Montréal in 1991, where he is currently a Professor of microelectronics and biomedical engineering. Dr. Sawan is a holder of a Canada Research Chair in Smart Medical Devices, he is leading the Microsystems Strategic Alliance of Quebec, and is founder of the Polystim Neurotechnologies Lab. Dr. Sawan is founder and cofounder of several int’l conferences such as the NEWCAS and BIOCAS. He is also cofounder and Associate Editor (AE) of the IEEE Trans. on BIOCAS, he is Deputy Editor-in Chief of the IEEE TCAS-II, and he is Editor and AE, and member of the board of several int’l Journals. He is member of the board of Governors of IEEE CASS. He published more than 600 peer reviewed papers, two books, 10 book chapters, and 12 patents. He received several awards, among them the Medal of Merit from The President of Lebanon, the Queen-Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and the Bombardier and Jacques-Rousseau Awards. Dr. Sawan is Fellow of the IEEE, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and Fellow of the Engineering Institutes of Canada. He is also “Officer” of the National Order of Quebec.