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

这项提议涉及无线电力传输(WPT)，可用于持续为设备供电或间歇性地为其电池充电，而无需能源与该设备之间的任何直接电接触。典型的用户将是研究人员，他们目前在使用当今技术对行为自由的小动物模型进行行为研究方面存在困难。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，涉及连接到动物体内或植入动物体内的传感器或电极之间的电缆，以及安装在机架上的数据采集和处理设备，从而限制动物的运动和行为。这项拟议的技术允许在任意形状和尺寸的丰富实验场中进行不间断的动物实验。通过提供一个被称为EnerCage系统的大型无线供电和通信的实验场，拟议的创新解决方案有望允许研究人员设计使用今天的生物仪器无法实现的实验。EnerCage系统能够适应任意形状和尺寸的实验场地，并通过利用重叠的六角形平面螺旋线圈阵列、接收功率的闭环控制、双频无线数据通信以及通过磁性传感器阵列对动物对象的无线非视线跟踪，在这些任意形状的场地上创建集中的磁场分布。EnerCage系统将实现在大型实验场中与自由行为的动物进行不间断的神经接口。

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.