A Wirelessly Powered Scattered Neural Recording Wearable System.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Neuroscience
• Wearable Technology

Background:

• Continuous, untethered electroencephalogram (EEG) recording is crucial for long-term neurological monitoring.
• Existing wearable EEG systems often face limitations in power, data transmission, and wearability.
• Advancements in low-power integrated circuits and wireless power transfer are enabling more sophisticated wearable health devices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel wirelessly powered, scattered neural recording wearable system for continuous EEG.
• To demonstrate a miniaturized, scalable, and highly wearable solution for untethered brain activity monitoring.
• To evaluate the system's performance and functionality in human experiments.

Main Methods:

• Development of a system with 32 standalone, sparsely distributed EEG recording devices and a central controller.
• Utilizing a 60 MHz inductive link for wireless power transfer and data communication (4 Mbps commands, 3.75 Mbps data).
• Incorporation of a low-power EEG application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) with a synchronized PWM demodulator, a 45 dB gain AFE, 0.03-400 Hz filtering, a 10-bit SAR ADC, and LSK backscatter.

Main Results:

• Miniaturized standalone devices (12 × 12 × 5 mm³) with enhanced wearability.
• Low-power ASIC design (84.6 µW) enabling efficient wireless power reception.
• Successful wireless transmission of EEG data with a 55.4 dB SNDR from the ADC and low input-referred noise (3.62 µV_RMS).

Conclusions:

• The proposed system offers a viable solution for continuous, untethered, and long-term EEG monitoring.
• The combination of wireless power, miniaturization, and efficient data handling significantly improves wearable neural recording.
• The system's successful evaluation in human experiments validates its potential for clinical and research applications.