Author Archives: Wouter Serdijn

6152 chapter downloads for Circuits and Systems for Future Generations of Wireless Communications

Since its online publication on Jun 02, 2009, there has been a total of 6152 chapter downloads for your book on SpringerLink, our online platform. Over the last year(s) the download figures have been as follows:

Year Chapter Downloads
2012 806
2011 1042
2010 2852

This means your book was one of the top 50% most downloaded eBooks in the relevant Springer eBook Collection in 2012.
To further widen the distribution of your book, it has also been made available as an Amazon Kindle eBook version.

A new name, but Biomedical Electronic remains

Biomedical Electronics Lab

Dear Reader,

The Biomedical Electronics Group underwent a small name change. From now onwards, the group is called “The Biomedical Electronics Laboratory”.

Its mission is “to provide the technology for the successful monitoring, diagnosis and treatment of cortical, neural, cardiac and muscular disorders by means of electroceuticals.”

To this end it conducts research on, provides education in and helps creating new businesses in neuroprosthetics, biosignal conditioning / detection, transcutaneous wireless communication, power management, energy harvesting and bioinspired circuits and systems.

Mark Stoopman’s work in the press

Long-range RF energy harvester with record sensitivity to power small sensor systems

Long-range RF energy harvester with record sensitivity to power small sensor systems

Today a press release appeared featuring the work of Mark Stoopman in collaboration with the Holst Centre and TU/e, entitled “Long-range RF energy harvester with record sensitivity to power small sensor systems”.

If you are interested in the whole press release, including some juicy pictures, please visit http://imec.fb.email.addemar.com/c2108/e0/h13206/t2/s0/index.html.

Enjoy!

Wouter

Aside

At the annual general assembly of the Delft Research Center on ICT (DIRECT), we proudly presented one of TU Delft’s faculty flagship projects “Beethoven”. Beethoven is a technology-driven research project on electroceuticals that aims at the design of a flexible brain … Continue reading

New Book: EMI-Resilient Amplifier Circuits

EMI-Resilient Amplifier Circuits

EMI-Resilient Amplifier Circuits

van der Horst, Marcel J., Serdijn, Wouter A., Linnenbank, André C.

2013, XIV, 300 p. 75 illus., 1 illus. in color.

ABOUT THIS BOOK
Describes design methods that incorporate electromagnetic interference (EMI) in the design of application specific negative-feedback amplifiers
Provides designers with a structured methodology to avoid the use of trial and error in meeting signal-to-error ratio (SER) requirements
Equips designers to increase EMI immunity of the amplifier itself, thus avoiding filtering at the input, reducing the number of components and avoiding detrimental effects on noise and stability
This book enables circuit designers to reduce the errors introduced by the fundamental limitations and electromagnetic interference (EMI) in negative-feedback amplifiers. The authors describe a systematic design approach for application specific negative-feedback amplifiers, with specified signal-to-error ratio (SER). This approach enables designers to calculate noise, bandwidth, EMI, and the required bias parameters of the transistors used in application specific amplifiers in order to meet the SER requirements.

· Describes design methods that incorporate electromagnetic interference (EMI) in the design of application specific negative-feedback amplifiers;

· Provides designers with a structured methodology to avoid the use of trial and error in meeting signal-to-error ratio (SER) requirements;

· Equips designers to increase EMI immunity of the amplifier itself, thus avoiding filtering at the input, reducing the number of components and avoiding detrimental effects on noise and stability.

Content Level » Research

Keywords » Analog Integrated Circuit Design – EMI – EMI-resilient – Electromagnetic Compatibility – Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering – Electromagnetic Interference – Electromagnetic Interference-resilient – Negative-feedback Amplifier Circuits – Signal-to-Error Ratio

Related subjects » Applied & Technical Physics – Circuits & Systems – Electronics & Electrical Engineering

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction.- Decreasing the disturbance coupled to amplifiers.- Modelling of active devices.- The Cascode and Differential amplifier stages.- Design of EMI-resilient single-stage amplifiers.- Design of EMI-resilient dual-stage amplifiers.- Realizations.- Conclusions and recommendations.

Quote from Michael Merzenich

While reading, correcting and enjoying the essay of Jose Manuel Rosas Escobar, I stumbled on a quote from Michael Merzenich, which I think you should read and comtemplate on.
So here goes…
“The success with any complicated prosthetic device relates as much to how the brain adjusts to it, accepts it and controls its use as it does to the device itself. If we can figure out how to engage the brain to do its part, it can make a merely adequate neural prosthetic device work marvelously.”

Wouter

New Biomedical Electronics Group photo

Biomedical Electronics Group anno 2013

Biomedical Electronics Group anno 2013

Today we made a new group picture. And thus we proudly present:

The Biomedical Electronics group anno 2013. From left to right:
Wu Chi Wing, Yao Liu, Duan Zhao, Menno Vastenholt, Sophinese Iskander-Rizk, Cees-Jeroen Bes, Alexandra-Maria Tautan, Lucho Gutierrez, Wouter Serdijn, Horacio Jimenez, Marijn van Dongen, Matthijs Weskin, Senad Hiseni, Joeri Willemse, Mark Stoopman, Yongjia Li, Andre Mansano, Wannaya Ngamkham.

Not on the photo: Sumit Bagga, Robin van Eijk, Marcel van der Horst, Marion de Vlieger, Chutham Sawigun, Sander Fondse, Joeri Biesbroek

Picture taken March 6, 2013.

Can heart beats really power cardiac pacemakers?

Baron von Munchausen

Today, I received a link (http://tweakers.net/nieuws/85353/hartslag-kan-pacemaker-van-stroom-voorzien.html) from Marijn, honorary member of the Biomedical Electronics Group, in which it is mentioned that researchers have found a way to harvest enough energy from a piezo-electric transducer so that a cardiac pacemaker can be powered from the heart itself. This would render the bulky batteries in the pacemakers unnecessary and the pacemaker thus does not have to be replaced after a couple of years because of a depleted battery.

I have two concerns about this. First, there is a kind of “Baron-von-Munchausen” effect. Baron von Munchausen was an 18th-century German nobleman, who, according to Rudolf Erich Raspe’s story The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, pulls himself out of a swamp by his hair (specifically, his pigtail). Now, let’s suppose that a pacemaker, equipped with a piezo-electric energy harvester to power the pacemaker, for no particular reason, fails to operate and the heart stops its precious beating, what will then power up the pacemaker again to make the beat again? Scary thought, isn’t it?

Second concern is of another nature. Pacemakers are usually replaced, not because the battery has depleted, but simply because a next generation pacemaker can provide a better therapy to the patient. As a side note, uncomfortable but true, current pacemakers (and thus also the batteries included therein) on average live longer than their owners. Hopefully this latter aspect will change for the better soon.

Wouter

Does enriched acoustic environment in humans abolish chronic tinnitus clinically and electrophysiologically?

Animal research has shown that loss of normal acoustic stimulation can increase spontaneous firing in the central auditory system and induce cortical map plasticity. Enriched acoustic environment after noise trauma prevents map plasticity and abolishes neural signs of tinnitus. In humans, the tinnitus spectrum overlaps with the area of hearing loss. Based on these findings it can be hypothesized that stimulating the auditory system by presenting music compensating specifically for the hearing loss might also suppress chronic tinnitus. To verify this hypothesis, a study was conducted in three groups of tinnitus patients. One group listened just to unmodified music (i.e. active control group), one group listened to music spectrally tailored to compensate for their hearing loss, and a third group received music tailored to overcompensate for their hearing loss, associated with one (in presbycusis) or two notches (in audiometric dip) at the edge of hearing loss. Our data indicate that applying overcompensation to the hearing loss worsens the patients’ tinnitus loudness, the tinnitus annoyance and their depressive feelings.
No significant effects were obtained for the control group or for the compensation group. These clinical findings were associated with an increase in current density within the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in the alpha2 frequency band and within the left pregenual anterior cingulate cortex in beta1 and beta2 frequency band. In addition, a region of interest analysis also demonstrated an associated increase in gamma band activity in the auditory cortex after overcompensation in comparison to baseline measurements. This was, however, not the case for the control or the compensation groups. In conclusion, music therapy compensating for hearing loss is not beneficial in suppressing tinnitus, and overcompensating hearing loss actually worsens tinnitus, both clinically and electrophysiologically.

2012 Published by Elsevier B.V, in Hearing Research, Hear Res. 2012 Oct 23. pii: S0378-5955(12)00244-4. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2012.10.003. Authors: Vanneste Svan Dongen MDe Vree BHiseni Svan der Velden EStrydis CKathleen JNorena ASerdijn WDe Ridder D

Neurostimulation causes nerves cells to grow back and allows paralyzed to walk again

Article from De Volkskrant, dd. Oct. 27, 2012, entitled "Paralyzed walks again"

Article from De Volkskrant, dd. Oct. 27, 2012, entitled “Paralyzed walks again”

Eddy was damn right when after the disk in his spinal cord was removed by the neurosurgeon and he lost almost all the feeling in one of his legs due to the acute hernia. By means of transcutaneous stimulation of his foot and leg he was able to regain feeling and control over his muscles  and walk again. The method was not proven scientifically yet, but obviously worked, as we witnessed from closeby. Now the scientific proof is there.

Exciting times ahead, if you ask me.

Wouter