Part I: Eyes and Ears With the advancement of modern electronic technology in the medical and biological fields, our eye, ear, lung, heart, and brain functions are likely to be enhanced.
The sci-fi drama "The Six Million Dollar Man" has been on the TV screen for almost 40 years, with modern electronics and nanotechnology, advanced implant technology, solar and light energy equipment, and medicine and biology. The integration of important developments in domain sensors, science fiction is becoming a reality. Scientific innovation has spawned sensor-based electronics that enhance and replace human organs. These electronic devices include WBAN (Wireless Body Area Network) and devices that enhance or replace the eyes and ears. The first part of this article describes innovative sensor technologies, as well as miniaturization, implantability, and wireless electronic interface from sensors to microcontrollers. The second part will discuss the lungs, heart and brain.
The development of sensors and wireless communication devices has enabled us to design miniature, cost-effective and intelligent physiological sensor nodes. One innovation is a wearable health monitoring system such as WBAN. The IEEE 802.15.4 standard for this technology specifies a low power, low data rate wireless solution associated with medical sensor body area networks. In 2011, STMicroelectronics launched its own future "cyborg" technology, including sensors and MEMS, and the iNEMO (Inertial Module Evaluation Board) node (Figure 1).
Figure 1. STMicroelectronics has developed sensor applications for personal and diagnostic applications.
Among other vendors in the field, Analog Devices also offers advanced activity monitoring solutions and sensor interface components, while Texas Instruments offers a development kit with Tmote Sky, the next generation of "mote". The platform, a remote platform for very low power, high data rate sensor network applications, has a dual design goal of fault tolerance and ease of development. TI's Tmote Sky suite claims to have 10KB of on-chip RAM (maximum capacity in all mote), IEEE 802.15.4 RF, and an integrated on-board antenna with a 125m range.
Help the blind to see the light again
Retinal repair techniques can help people with retinal degenerative diseases such as macular degeneration that may cause blindness to restore vision (Reference 1). The researchers did a clinical implant study to prove that the implanted prosthesis eventually compensated for the lost function of the eye. The study used an implant that contained a 15-channel excitation chip, discrete power components, and a power source that matched the outer wall of the eye. With the data receiving coil. Researchers at the Boston Retinal Implant Project implanted an array in the subretinal region of a pig, and most of the prosthesis (a sealed electronic component box made of titanium) attached to the outer surface of the sclera, or to the white part of the eye. An array of helical electrodes extends from the box and extends to the upper quadrant of the eye (Fig. 2). The system has an external video capture unit and a transmitter that can transmit image data to the device's implanted portion (Figure 3). A custom ASIC converts the image into a two-phase current pulse that is programmable to the intensity, period, and frequency of the electrode array (Figure 4). Minco also offers advanced flexible circuits for implants that help achieve this project for 1.7 million people suffering from such eye problems.
Figure 2. The Boston Retina Implant Project researchers implanted an array in the subretinal region of a pig, but mounted the majority of the prosthesis (a titanium sealed electronic component) on the surface of the sclera. The electrode array emerges from the box and extends to the upper quadrant of the eye
Figure 3. This system has an external video capture unit and a transmitter that wirelessly transmits image data to the implanted device.
Figure 4. The custom ASIC converts the image into two-phase current pulses that are programmable for the intensity, period, and frequency of an array of electrodes.
Since the researchers started this clinical study two years ago, electronic technology has made a lot of progress, improved miniaturization, reduced power consumption, and increased integration, which is expected to form products and get FDA (food and drugs) Authority) Approved for use in humans. Examples of these technological advancements include: Texas Instruments' wireless receiver and transmitter technology compliant with the Wireless Charging Alliance Qi standard, which provides standards-compliant communications for improved load systems for wireless power transfer, AC/DC power conversion, Output voltage adjustment, as well as dynamic rectifier control. With Texas Instruments' wireless power products and development kits, you can make a complete line of unwired power transfer and charging designs. Freescale and Analog Devices also offer low-power wireless products in this area.
Another clinical study is the use of photodiode circuits that are expected to achieve high-resolution retinal prostheses. In this study, researchers at Stanford University are working on active-biased photosensitive circuits and passive photovoltaic circuits (Reference 2). Daniel V Palanker, an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University and an associate professor at the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, said he used a laptop to process the data stream from the camera and displayed the data using a miniature LCD (similar to video glasses). Near-IR (infrared) light at a wavelength of about 900 nm illuminates the LCD at 0.5 ms intervals, which is equivalent to about 30? Field of view. This pulse projects the image through the eyeball onto the retina. Then, the PV pixels in the next implanted 3mm diameter chip receive the IR image, which is equivalent to 10? Field of view. Each pixel converts the pulsed light into a proportional biphasic pulsed current that carries visual information to the diseased retinal tissue.
Compared to photosensitive systems, there is no additional power source in the photovoltaic system, which greatly simplifies the design, manufacture, and associated surgical procedures of the prosthesis, which requires an active bias voltage. The researchers plan to determine the response of each retinal neuron to this stimulus in future studies.
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