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

这一提议涉及无线电力传输（WPT），它既可以连续地为设备供电，也可以间歇地为电池充电，而无需在能源和设备之间进行任何直接的电接触。典型的用户将是研究人员，他们目前很难用今天的技术对行为自由的小动物模型进行行为研究。在动物研究中，长期的生物数据采集、刺激和药物传递是必要的，并且涉及连接在动物体内或植入动物体内的传感器或电极与机架式数据采集和处理设备之间的电缆，导致动物的运动和行为受到限制。提出的技术允许不间断的动物实验在丰富的实验场所任意形状和尺寸。通过提供一个被称为EnerCage系统的大型无线供电和通信实验场所，该创新解决方案有望使研究人员能够设计出当今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所，并通过利用一组重叠的六边形平面螺旋线圈、接收功率的闭环控制、双频无线数据通信以及通过一组磁传感器对动物受试者进行无线非视距跟踪，在这些任意形状的场所上创建一个集中的磁场分布。EnerCage系统将在大型实验场所实现与自由行为动物的不间断神经接口。

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.