DustNet: A Wireless Network of Ultrasonic Neural Implants

Spatially distributed peripheral nerve recordings can be used to reconstruct motor intention and improve natural control of prosthetics. However, many existing clinical solutions rely on percutaneous wires to access peripheral nerves; these sites are prone to infection and motion-induced electrode degradation, preventing chronic use. To address the need for fully wireless neural recording systems, this paper presents DustNet: a spatially-distributed network of ultrasonically-powered neural recording implants capable of supporting multiple simultaneously-recording nodes over a single ultrasound link. To enable high-throughput multi-implant communication, DustNet implements a time-division multiple-access (TDMA) protocol with up to 16-level amplitude modulation of the ultrasound backscatter that achieves up to 4× higher data rates than traditional on-off keying methods. Each neural implant consists of a 0.7×0.7×0.7 mm³ piezoceramic transducer, a 100 nF off-chip capacitor, and an IC mounted on a flexible PCB. The implant IC was fabricated in a 28nm CMOS process and occupies an area of 0.43 mm². System functionality with 4 physical implants was verified at 90 mm depth in oil, achieving a maximum measured data rate of 200 kb/s at 2 MHz ultrasound carrier frequency, with each implant transmitting uplink data at 50 kb/s and dissipating just 7 µW; the communication protocol enables scaling to support up to 400 kb/s total data rate over the same link.