[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TS411KXyWs[/youtube]
Published on Jul 10, 2013
Una pequeña descripción de su investigación, en circuitos de bajo consumo y miniaturización de los mismos. Su descripción aqui http://cass-school.uniandes.edu.co/lecturers.html.
Posted in Education, Electronics, General
Injectable electronics still need to become smaller
Frequent readers of this weblog may still remember a previous post, entitled “And the paralyzed will walk again“. This phrase comes from a Discovery Channel movie/documentary, called “2057: the body”, in which it is predicted that by the year 2057 you will be able to survive a three story fall and even be able to walk again as there will be tiny microstimulators attached to your muscles, which can be injected.
Injectable electronics, how fascinating would that be! No more lengthy surgeries, during which only a single, bulky device is implanted, but rather a procedure that takes less than a couple of minutes, during which multiple micro-stimulators are inserted via a seringe. Once done, these stimulators will form a wireless network and will provide the motory neural pathway with well-timed electric stimuli necessary to evoke the correct contraction of the multiple muscles involved in a delicate movement or even seemingly simple posture control.
But how feasible is this idea of injectable electronics? If you search for the term injectable electronics, you will most likely find a lot of references to the work of John Rogers, professor at the University of Illinois in the US, who built “an electronic LED device so tiny it can be injected into delicate tissue, such as in the brain, without harming it“.
Other links that can be found refer to work done on silk implants or even magnesium implants that are either stretchable or can easily dissolve into the body once the good work has been done.
I personally believe that we only can create injectable electronic devices if they have at least some intelligence in them. For this, the good old silicon would be an excellent candidate. Silicon is a nice and friendly biocompatible material, can be made bendable (by thinning the substrate) or stretchable (by removing the substrate altogether at some points). And what’s more, silicon can accommodate stimulation circuitry, sensors, signal processing, communication electronics, antennas, battery foils, all the good stuff needed to make a good injectable.
Of course, in order not to damage the tissue that the electronic device is injected in, it needs to be small, i.e., thin and narrow. It is however allowed to make it long, e.g., a couple of millimeters up to one or two centimeters. These unconventional dimensions raise very exciting technological challenges, such as:
There obviously is still a lot to do. Exciting stimes ahead, if you ask me.
Wouter
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.
Posted in General
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.
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
Posted in General
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
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.
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
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.
Posted in General
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
Posted in Energy Harvesting, General, Pacemakers