I-Corps: Highly-Efficient Adaptive Wireless Power Transmission and Management

该提议涉及无线电力传输（WPT），其可用于连续地为设备供电或间歇地为其电池充电，而在能量源与该设备之间没有任何直接电接触。典型的用户将是研究人员，目前有困难进行行为研究的小型自由行为的动物模型与今天的技术。 在动物研究中，长期的生物数据采集、刺激和药物输送是必要的，并且涉及连接在附接到或植入动物体内的传感器或电极与机架安装的数据采集和处理设备之间的电缆，导致对动物运动和行为的限制。该技术可以在具有任意形状和尺寸的丰富实验场所中进行不间断的动物实验。通过提供一个大型无线供电和通信的实验竞技场，称为EnerCage系统，该创新解决方案有望允许研究人员设计使用当今生物仪器无法实现的实验。“EnerCage”系统能够符合具有任意形状和尺寸的实验舞台，并通过利用重叠的六边形平面螺旋线圈阵列、接收功率的闭环控制、双频带无线数据通信以及经由磁传感器阵列对动物受试者的无线非视线跟踪，在这些任意形状的舞台上创建聚焦磁场分布。EnerCage系统将在大型实验场所中与自由行为的动物实现不间断的神经接口。

This proposal involves wireless power transmission (WPT) that can be used to either continuously power up a device or intermittently recharge its battery without any direct electrical contact between the energy source and that device. The typical users will be researchers that currently have difficulties in conducting behavioral research on small freely behaving animal models with today's technologies. In animal research, long-term biological data acquisition, stimulation, and drug delivery are necessary, and involve cables connected between sensors or electrodes attached to or implanted in the animal body and rack-mounted data acquisition and processing devices, leading to constraints on animal movements and behavior. The proposed technology allows uninterrupted animal experiments in enriched experimental arenas with arbitrary shapes and dimensions.By providing a large wirelessly-powered and communicated experimental arena, called the EnerCage system, the proposed innovative solution is expected to allow researchers to design experiments that are not possible with today's bio-instruments. The 'EnerCage' system is capable of conforming to experimental arenas with arbitrary shapes and dimensions, and creating a focused magnetic field distribution across these arbitrary shaped arenas by utilizing an array of overlapping hexagonal planar spiral coils, closed-loop control of the received power, dual-band wireless data communication, and wireless non-line-of-sight tracking of the animal subjects via an array of magnetic sensors. The EnerCage system will enable uninterrupted neural interfacing with freely behaving animals in large experimental arenas.