Implantable Telemetry Systems

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1) MAIN SHORT AND LONG TERM OBJECTIVES OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH PROGRAM: by building upon our existing achievements and current state of the work in progress, my first practical objective is to develop micro-sized implantable wireless telemetry systems at cubic millimetre scale, for example, small enough to fit inside a mouse body. My motivation to achieve this particular objective is threefold. First, by itself the proposed objective is extremely difficult but not impossible to reach, which challenges my engineering and academic curiosity. Second, a genetically modified mouse is one of the most important and often used models by biomedical researchers, thus there is practical and immediate need for such systems. Third, design of such telemetry systems is exceptionally challenging engineering task, however once we master the design of telemetry systems at a cubic millimetre scale, the same system is then relatively easily adapted to interface with other types and combinations of sensors. 2) THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH: my research program is primarily driven by practical engineering problems, which is to say that it addresses complex problems in real contexts. In this program I aim to integrate known and hypothetical design principles to provide feasible solutions to these complex problems. This kind of development and research takes place through continuous cycles of design, verification, analysis, and redesign phases. That is, in my program I have adopted the design-based research approach. As oppose to the traditional predictive research approach (i.e. the hypothesis, experiment, theory cycles) in the design--based research approach my starting point is analysis and definition of a practical problem. Indeed, my current research is inspired by the following question: is it possible, and if yes how can we design a short-distance wireless implantable telemetry system that is small enough to fit into a few cubic millimetres volume, for example into belly of a small animal subject such as a laboratory mouse? The problem is to design an ultra-small wireless telemetry system capable of simultaneously supporting multiple sensors. Currently available data indicate that three main limitations of the currently available telemetry systems are: a) due to their physical size they are limited to subjects with large bodies (e.g. humans), and other telemetry applications that are not space limited; b) they rely on the implanted energy source such as a battery, and c) they serve only one kind of sensor (e.g. either pressure or temperature sensor). Very important component of this program will be in the training of HQP at all levels who will have an opportunity to learn and exercise new and relevant skills, such as theoretical analysis of physical phenomena (e.g. interaction between EM waves and living tissue), microelectronic circuit design (e.g. RF transceiver and signal processing), and the system level analysis with practical implementation.. 3) THE NOVELTY AND EXPECTED SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WORK TO FIELDS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING: this research program will provide unique contributions in the form of ultra-small integrated RF implantable telemetry system and relevant theoretical work. At first, it will be used for cardiac monitoring telemetry and, eventually, when it is interfaced with various sensors it may become part of a wireless sensor network that could be embedded, for instance, into crop fields, various constructions, and into a human body. Thus, the micro wireless network could enable, for example, real-time monitoring of growing crops, bridge integrity, or the human health. Relative to the other published works, the proposed telemetry system is unique with respect to its size, complexity and the power consumption.