ITR: Wireless Networking Solutions for Smart Sensor Biomedical Applications

ITR：智能传感器生物医学应用的无线网络解决方案

• 批准号: 0086020
• 负责人: Loren Schwiebert
• 金额: $ 179.74万
• 依托单位: Wayne State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-09-01 至 2006-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0086020&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ITR; Wireless; Networking; Solutions; Smart

Implanted biomedical devices have the potential to revolutionize medicine. The types of procedures that are being proposed could greatly improve the health and vitality of persons in ways previously not possible. Information technology is a critical component of this endeavor, requiring both novel hardware and software design. The limited power and computational capabilities of these biological implants present challenging research issues. As progress is made on these topics, there is great promise of long-term benefits. Multidisciplinary research, drawing on the expertise of researchers in a wide array of areas is required. This proposal assembles a multi-institutional team of researchers in computer science and engineering, solid state devices, and medicine. The combined talents of this team will be required to realize the goal of this proposal - small biomedical devices composed of smart sensors that are implanted for long-term use. These devices require the ability to communicate with an external diagnostic computer system via a wireless interface. A large-scale research program on smart sensors is on-going at Wayne State University, covering all aspects from materials characterization through integrated circuit design and simulation to hybrid device fabrication. This major research initiative requires a multidisciplinary team involving faculty, researchers, and students from the Colleges of Engineering, Science, and Medicine. All are members of the Smart Sensors and Integrated Microsystems (SSIM) research group. The research in this proposal adds a new dimension to the currently funded research of the SSIM program by providing wireless communication capabilities to the implanted microsensors. This additional capability is possible because of the close collaboration among researchers at Wayne State University and Colorado State University. The proposed work will take an integrated hardware and software approach to developing solutions for wireless networking of human-embedded microsensors. These solutions will be bio-compatible, energy-efficient, fault-tolerant, and scalable. In addition, they would support continuous operation and provide diagnostic capabilities. The proposed work will address several fundamental questions for the wireless networking of embedded microsensors, including those arising due to the need for low-powered, low-maintenance, highly-reliable, and scalable solutions. As a demonstration of our proposed techniques, an artificial retina prosthesis and related visual cortical implant will be developed. The goal is to design wireless network protocols for energy-efficient communication between multiple retinal sensor array/cortical implants and an external base station. The research in this proposal provides the building blocks for this wireless network. The severe limits on the computational and memory capabilities of the smart sensor implants place tight constraints on the communication protocol. For this reason, an external communication device, contained in a pair of eyeglasses, for example, will provide the additional resources necessary for protocol-compliant communication, and increased range and bandwidth. Software to display the message contents will be developed in order to validate the network protocols and the sensor communication. The software to perform image analysis and recognition will be also be developed by our research team. The developed solution will be evaluated, through both simulation and pro-totyping, for various performance and functionality criteria including bio-compatibility, energy-efficiency, reliability, and scalability Upon completion, the proposed work will have several benefits in the area of wireless networking of low-powered microsensors, which are suitable for biomedical applications. Other biomedical applications where this technology are useful is limited only by our imagination. For example, patients with Parkinson's disease and epilepsy could benefit from the ability to implant sensors in the neural pathways of the brain to alter the undesired signals and restore proper functioning. Existing technology is very crude and not suitable for chronic implanted devices or complex signal stimulation and detection. Another example is acoustic and optical biosensor arrays for blood analysis currently under development at Wayne State University. Similar sensors are being developed to detect cancer cells by implanting a smart sensor in the body of a recovering cancer patient. One of the main contributions of this project would be a framework for developing scalable wireless networking and powering solutions for biomedical applications. The integration of advances in wireless networking and smart sensor technology have great potential in several other applications such as the monitoring of distributed environmental sensors. It is envisioned that networked smart sensors will revolutionize our world in ways beyond our current imagination. Besides the technical benefits there will be several societal and educational benefits. Societal benefits include improved quality-of-life for many individuals and the accompanied benefits to society of their increased vitality and longevity. The educational component of this project will train information technology personnel in this very important interdisciplinary area. In particular, the PIs plan to develop a wireless networking of distributed and embedded sensors, to integrate the course in the existing curriculum at Wayne State and Colorado State, to develop tutorials centered around the theme of the proposal, and to work towards increasing the involvement of minorities and women in interdisciplinary research.

植入式生物医学设备有可能彻底改变医学。正在提出的各种程序可以以以前不可能的方式大大改善人们的健康和活力。信息技术是这一奋进的关键组成部分，需要新颖的硬件和软件设计。这些生物植入物的有限功率和计算能力提出了具有挑战性的研究问题。随着在这些问题上取得进展，长期利益大有希望。需要进行多学科研究，利用各领域研究人员的专门知识。该提案汇集了计算机科学与工程，固态设备和医学领域的多机构研究人员团队。该团队的综合人才将被要求实现该提案的目标-由植入长期使用的智能传感器组成的小型生物医学设备。这些设备需要通过无线接口与外部诊断计算机系统通信的能力。 韦恩州立大学正在进行一项关于智能传感器的大规模研究计划，涵盖从材料表征到集成电路设计和模拟到混合器件制造的各个方面。这项重大的研究计划需要一个多学科的团队，包括教师，研究人员和来自工程，科学和医学学院的学生。他们都是智能传感器和集成微系统（SSIM）研究小组的成员。该提案中的研究通过为植入的微传感器提供无线通信能力，为目前资助的SSIM计划研究增加了一个新的维度。这种额外的能力是可能的，因为韦恩州立大学和科罗拉多州立大学的研究人员之间的密切合作。 拟议的工作将采取集成的硬件和软件方法来开发人体嵌入式微传感器无线网络的解决方案。这些解决方案将具有生物兼容性、节能性、容错性和可扩展性。此外，它们还将支持连续作业并提供诊断能力。拟议的工作将解决嵌入式微传感器无线联网的几个基本问题，包括由于需要低功耗，低维护，高可靠性和可扩展的解决方案而产生的问题。作为我们所提出的技术的示范，人工视网膜假体和相关的视觉皮层植入物将被开发。 我们的目标是设计无线网络协议，用于多个视网膜传感器阵列/皮层植入物和外部基站之间的节能通信。本提案中的研究为该无线网络提供了构建模块。对智能传感器植入物的计算和存储能力的严格限制对通信协议施加了严格的约束。因此，例如，包含在一副眼镜中的外部通信设备将提供符合协议的通信所需的额外资源以及增加的范围和带宽。将开发显示消息内容的软件，以验证网络协议和传感器通信。进行图像分析和识别的软件也将由我们的研究团队开发。开发的解决方案将通过模拟和原型进行评估，以满足各种性能和功能标准，包括生物相容性、能效、可靠性和可扩展性 完成后，拟议的工作将有几个好处，在该地区的无线网络的低功耗微传感器，这是适合于生物医学应用。这项技术在其他生物医学领域的应用只受到我们想象力的限制。例如，帕金森病和癫痫患者可以受益于在大脑神经通路中植入传感器的能力，以改变不需要的信号并恢复正常功能。现有技术非常粗糙，不适合慢性植入装置或复杂的信号刺激和检测。另一个例子是韦恩州立大学目前正在开发的用于血液分析的声学和光学生物传感器阵列。类似的传感器正在开发中，通过在康复中的癌症患者体内植入智能传感器来检测癌细胞。该项目的主要贡献之一是为生物医学应用开发可扩展的无线网络和供电解决方案的框架。 无线网络和智能传感器技术的集成在其他几个应用中有很大的潜力，如分布式环境传感器的监测。据设想，联网的智能传感器将以超出我们目前想象的方式彻底改变我们的世界。除了技术上的好处，还有一些社会和教育上的好处。社会效益包括许多人的生活质量得到改善，以及他们的生命力和寿命增加，从而给社会带来好处。该项目的教育部分将培训这一非常重要的跨学科领域的信息技术人员。特别是，PI计划开发分布式和嵌入式传感器的无线网络，将课程整合到韦恩州和科罗拉多州的现有课程中，围绕提案的主题开发教程，并努力增加少数民族和妇女参与跨学科研究。