Body Channel Research Articles

Novel Molecular Signaling Method and System for Molecular Communication in Human Body

Recently, Molecular Communication (MC) has been recognized as an enabling technology for nanonetworks where MC is envisioned to enable nanorobots to achieve sophisticated and complex tasks in the human body for promising medical applications. Many MC methods that can be applied in the human body have been proposed and modeled in the literature. In this paper, we propose a new method and system for Molecular Communication in the Body, denoted MoSiMe and MoCoBo, respectively. The method takes advantage of how the absorption, distribution, metabolization, and excretion (ADME) bodily processes affects drugs, referred to as Pharmacokinetics (PK) in pharmacology, to enable MC between any points of the human body regardless of their distance even if they are in different parts of the body and separated by tissues and fluids. The architecture, design and components of the MoCoBo system and MoSiMe method are described and different transmitter designs, including a novel passive transmitter design for the first time in telecommunications, are introduced. An analytical model for the body channel is derived and validated with respect to existing human and animal tests. The model captures the ADME bodily processes that affect the kinetics of substances administered to the body. Additionally, an experimental MoCoBo proof of concept platform, capable of sending and receiving a stream of bits between a transmitter and a receiver, is built and validated against clinical trials, animal tests and analytical models. The introduced platform can also be utilized to test modulation techniques and designs for new MoCoBo transmitters and receivers.

Two Successful ACTS Programs Are Held in China [Chapters

Encouraged by the success of the IEEE Advanced CMOS Technology School (ACTS) for 2017 and 2018, the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Beijing Chapter launched ACTS Summer School 2019 on 5 August of last year. ACTS is a joint activity supported by the SSCS and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CAS). Student members of the two sponsoring Societies had the opportunity to attend the school free of charge. IEEE ACTS Summer 2019 was sponsored by GalaxyCore. Lecture topics focused on millimeterwave (mm-wave) wireless networks, power management ICs, bioelectronic systems, body channel communication (BCC), and smart sensors. The general cochairs were Milin Zhang, Tsinghua University, Beijing, and Liyuan Liu, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing.

A Periodic Transmission Line Model for Body Channel Communication

Body channel communication (BCC) is a technique for data transmission exploiting the human body as communication channel. Even though it was pioneered about 25 years ago, the identification of a good electrical model behind its functioning is still an open research question. The proposed distributed model can then serve as a supporting tool for the design, allowing to enhance the performances of any BCC system. A novel finite periodic transmission line model was developed to describe the human body as transmission medium. According to this model, for the first time, the parasitic capacitance between the transmitter and the receiver is assumed to depend on their distance. The parameters related to the body and electrodes are acquired experimentally by fitting the bio-impedentiometric measurements, in the range of frequencies from 1 kHz to 1 MHz, obtaining a mean absolute error lower than 4° and 30Ω for the phase angle and impedance modulus, respectively. The proposed mathematical framework has been successfully validated by describing a ground-referred and low-complexity system called Live Wire, suitable as supporting tool for visually impaired people, and finding good agreement between the measured and the calculated data, marking a ±3% error for communication distances ranging from 20 to 150 cm. In this work we introduced a new circuital approach, for capacitive-coupling systems, based on finite periodic transmission line, capable to describe and model BCC systems allowing to optimize the performances of similar systems.

A 7 x 7 x 2 mm³ 8.6-μW 500-kb/s Transmitter With Robust Injection-Locking-Based Frequency-to-Amplitude Conversion Receiver Targeting for Implantable Applications

A transmitter (TX)/receiver (RX) pair using galvanic coupling to achieve in-body to on-body body channel communication (I2O-BCC) for ultra-low power (ULP) miniaturized implanted applications is presented. The I2O-BCC enables low loss communication ( in vivo communication distance using the body as a transmission medium. Injection locking (IL)-based frequency-to-amplitude (F2A) conversion demodulator is proposed in RX. It can handle more than 20% frequency variations exhibited by the TX frequency-shift keying (FSK) signals due to the lack of accurate off-chip reference. The packaged implanted TX measures $7\,{\times }\,7\,{\times }\,2$ mm3. It contains a micro-battery, two micro-probes, and the designed SoC in 130-nm CMOS process. The in-body TX radio block consumes only 8.6 $\mu \text{W}$ at 500 kb/s with an on-chip power management unit that exhibits a 45% power efficiency, while the on-body RX consumes 591.5 $\mu \text{W}$ . The TX radio block power is 8 $\times $ lower than previous works and achieves energy efficiency at 17.2 pJ/b with minimal bill of material (BOM).

Investigation and Modeling of Multi-Node Body Channel Wireless Power Transfer.

Insufficient power supply is a huge challenge for wireless body area network (WBAN). Body channel wireless power transfer (BC-WPT) is promising to realize multi-node high-efficiency power transmission for miniaturized WBAN nodes. However, the behavior of BC-WPT, especially in the multi-node scenario, is still lacking in research. In this paper, the inter-degeneration mechanism of a multi-node BC-WPT is investigated based on the intuitive analysis of the existing circuit model. Co-simulation in the Computer Simulation Technology (CST) and Cadence platform and experiments in a general indoor environment verify this mechanism. Three key factors, including the distance between the source and the harvester, frequency of the source, and area of the ground electrodes, are taken into consideration, resulting in 15 representative cases for simulation and experiments studies. Based on the simulation parameters, an empirical circuit model to accurately predict the received power of multiple harvesters is established, which fits well with the measurement results, and can further provide guidelines for designs and research on multi-node BC-WPT systems.

An Auto Loss Compensation System for Capacitive-Coupled Body Channel Communication.

This paper proposes an auto loss compensation (ALC) system to attenuate the time-variant path loss for capacitive-coupled body channel communication (CC-BCC). The system employs a time-division gradient indicator to continuously monitor the compensation conditions, and dynamically adjust the compensation inductor through a proportional integral (PI) controller. With the closed-loop topology, the proposed ALC system has two major advantages: first, the path loss induced by the backward coupling effect can be compensated without calibration; second, this system can dynamically attenuate the path loss, even when the channel characteristics vary with time. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed ALC system can significantly attenuate the backward path loss, especially under wearable and motion scenarios.

Dynamic Channel Modeling and OFDM System Analysis for Capacitive Coupling Body Channel Communication.

Body channel communication (BCC) has the potential to achieve better energy efficiency over other conventional wireless communication schemes, thus becomes a promising solution for the wireless body area network. To deal with the fading and dynamic variation challenges of BCC, the technique of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising candidate. However, some basic issues in OFDM including the pilot design and the modulating methods have not been analyzed for BCC. The contribution of this paper includes proposing a dynamic channel model of BCC for system level designing, analyzing the pilot design method, and proposing an adaptive modulating algorithm for BCC. Practical communication experiments based on software define radio are also implemented to validate the the effectiveness of the pilot design method and the modulating algorithm.

Energy efficient low density parity check scheme for body channel communication using FPGA

An arrangement of an on-body to on-body thin-ranging channel along with various issues is deliberated. Time-area appearances of body channel communication (BCC) of human are considered by using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) at variable transmission distances and signal frequencies. In Human body channel communication (HBCC), wide band signaling (WBS) technique is characterized as well as correlated with existing devices and are more stable and expend very less power. But based on the movement of human body, wide band signaling is more sensitive. The WBS constructed BCC is established in FPGA platform at diverse broadcast distances and signal frequencies by using Non Return to Zero (NRZ) encoded information. In this strategy presented, the information encoded by NRZI data at the transmitter part are driven accurately to the human based BCC. At the receiver part, the FPGA enhanced the conventional signals and in addition, the proposed LDPC technique circuit enhances the accepted frequency decoded point information from irregular nodes. The presented LDPC technique based wide band signaling BCC transceiver is acknowledged in the typical 65 nm CMOS executing process. The core region is found as 0.133 mm2. Power consumption of LDPC technique based WBS- BCC transceiver is 1.07 mW at 40Mb/s. The bit energy is 0.02 nJ/b.

Theoretical Analysis of AM and FM Interference Robustness of Integrating DDR Receiver for Human Body Communication.

Prolific growth of miniaturized devices has led to widespread use of wearable devices and physiological sensors. The state-of-art technique for connecting these devices and sensors is through wireless radio waves. However, wireless body area wireless body area network (WBAN) suffers from limited security (wireless signals from energy-constrained sensors can be snooped by nearby attackers), poor energy-efficiency (up conversion and down conversion), and self-interference. Human body communication (HBC), which uses human body as a conducting medium, has emerged as a new alternative physical layer for WBAN, as it can enable communication with better energy efficiency and enhanced security. Broadband (BB) HBC uses the human body channel as a broadband communication medium and can enable higher energy efficiency compared to narrowband HBC. However, due to the antenna effect of human body, ambient interferences get picked up from the environment, proving to be one of the primary bottlenecks for BB-HBC systems. In this paper, we analyze the performance of an integrating dual data rate (I-DDR) receiver, which enables interference robust BB-HBC, under continuous wave (CW), amplitude modulated (AM), and frequency modulated (FM) interferences. Theoretical derivations along with simulations provide key insights into the behavior of I-DDR receiver under different interference scenarios, highlighting the efficacy (>22dB improvement in SIR tolerance for both FM and AM) of the technique. Finally, measurements are carried out by applying the I-DDR principle on signals transmitted through the human body and captured on an oscilloscope. Measurements from an I-DDR receiver fabricated in TSMC 65nm technology shows <10-4 BER in presence of CW, AM, and FM interference with -21dB SIR further demonstrating the efficacy of the I-DDR method in interference rejection.

A 0.8-V 82.9-$\mu$ W In-Ear BCI Controller IC With 8.8 PEF EEG Instrumentation Amplifier and Wireless BAN Transceiver

In-ear brain–computer interface (BCI) controller system is implemented with a dedicated system-on-chip (SoC) including electroencephalography (EEG) readout and body channel communication (BCC) transceiver (TRX). The 8-mm2 chip is fabricated using 65-nm CMOS and contains three key features: 1) current reusing low-noise amplifier (CRLNA) for low power; 2) bootstrapping dc servo loop (BDSL) enabling low-noise measurement even on 350-mV electrode dc offset (EDO); and 3) dual-mode programmable gain amplifier (DMPGA) that reduces TRX power consumption by activating only when the intentional blink is present. EEG instrumentation amplifier (IA) shows the state-of-the-art 8.8 power efficiency factor (PEF) performance, and the entire integrated circuit (IC) consumes 82.9 $\mu \text{W}$ . From the measurement, with nine subjects, the proposed BCI system accomplished 84% average accuracy for the binary selection task.

Design and Implementation of Low Power High-Efficient Transceiver for Body Channel Communications.

Body channel communications (BCC) have been researched while an allowing technology to improve necessities for the low power and high reconfiguration power in wireless telemetry systems used at wireless communication purpose. Conventional features on BCC are concentrated mostly on modeling of channels by using of an efficient measurement technique, wireless transceiver design and then by means of a transmission technique. Particularly, the wireless digital transmitting, developed as a personalized method intended for the body channel, offers wanted to develop flexible and low power BCC systems. With the developing level of wearable communication protocol and applications, there may be an increasingly reliable on an adaptable BCC transmitter that helps both data reconfigure power and power reduction condition. In this paper, an extremely reconfigurable Hamming Encoding Digital Transmitter (HEDT) which works with both reconfigurable data and power reduction condition that supports from two innovative operation conditions is suggested. In a HEDT device, the overall data rate is controlled by the level of Hamming codes designed to make use of in the perfect BCC band of 20-100MHz. The proposed Hamming Encoded Transmission method achieves seven times improved data rate when compared with conventional BCC processors. The next unique implementation technique is based on the usage of Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) of a Hamming encoded HEDT approach. This approach permits the BCC transceiver to use the perfect channel with bandwidth among 40-100MHz. Thereby half the clock rate reduces 40% of overall power utilization. The HEDT system is completely designed in a 65nm CMOS procedure. It uses a primary area of 0.14 × 0.2mm. When functioning below a data-rate of 60Mb/s (low power) condition, the BCC transmitter utilizes only 1.00mW.

A Four-Camera VGA-Resolution Capsule Endoscope System With 80-Mb/s Body Channel Communication Transceiver and Sub-Centimeter Range Capsule Localization

A small form-factor, lightweight wireless capsule endoscope (WCE) system with body channel communication (BCC) transceiver ICs is proposed for VGA-resolution image transferring and capsule localization. The transceiver ICs are composed of capsule chip and receiver chip, implemented in a 65-nm CMOS process. In the capsule side, the proposed system provides 360° image capturing through four-camera integration to reduce the miss rate. Also, a dual-band pulse-shaping BCC transmitter is proposed to enable low-power (<1 mW), high-speed (80 Mb/s) image transmission. In the receiver side, contact attenuation compensated-received signal strength indicator (CAC-RSSI) is proposed to increase the capsule localization accuracy. The external system is composed of eight-receiver nodes that allow signal demodulation and localization of the capsule. To reduce transceiver payload and system power consumption, image encoder is implemented in the capsule. The transceiver IC is integrated into the capsule system and verified with body mimicking phantom. The proposed system satisfies compatibility with medical grade diagnosis by operating longer than 8 h with 4 fps and 12 h with 2 fps with conventional two silver oxide 55-mA · h coin batteries. The tested localization accuracy shows less than sub-centimeter range.

IB-MAC: Transmission Latency-Aware MAC for Electro-Magnetic Intra-Body Communications.

Intra-body Communication (IBC) is a communication method using the human body as a communication medium, in which body-attached devices exchange electro-magnetic (EM) wave signals with each other. The fact that our human body consists of water and electrolytes allows such communication methods to be possible. Such a communication technology can be used to design novel body area networks that are secure and resilient towards external radio interference. While being an attractive technology for enabling new applications for human body-centered ubiquitous applications, network protocols for IBC systems is yet under-explored. The IEEE 802.15.6 standards present physical and medium access control (MAC) layer protocols for IBC, but, due to many simplifications, we find that its MAC protocol is limited in providing an environment to enable high data rate applications. This work, based on empirical EM wave propagation measurements made for the human body communication channel, presents IB-MAC, a centralized Time-division multiple access (TDMA) protocol that takes in consideration the transmission latency the body channel induces. Our results, in which we use an event-based simulator to compare the performance of IB-MAC with two different IEEE 802.15.6 standard-compliant MAC protocols and a state-of-the art TDMA-based MAC protocol for IBC, suggest that IB-MAC is suitable for supporting high data rate applications with comparable radio duty cycle and latency performance.

A fast phase tracking reference-less all-digital CDR circuit for human body channel communication

This paper presents a fast phase tracking and reference-less all-digital clock and data recovery circuit (ADCDR) for body channel communication (BCC) applications. The proposed ADCDR uses the novel phase-error calculation without a reference clock signal to improve the phase-tracking ability and reduce overall power consumption by eliminating the requirement for an external quartz crystal oscillator. In addition, the proposed gain-calibration method can automatically calibrate the gain value under different process-voltage-temperature (PVT) conditions to quickly compensate for the phase error. The wideband signaling (WBS) transceiver, including the proposed ADCDR is implemented using a 90-nm CMOS process with a core area of 0.36 mm2. The maximum transmission data rate of the proposed design is 20 Mb/s and power consumption is 2.2 mW, which are very suitable for the wearable device applications as compared with the traditional designs.

An Accurate Measurement System Comprising of Wireless Thermometers for Neonate Body Temperature Monitoring

This paper addresses the design and implemen¬tation of a real-time monitoring system consisting of wireless thermometers (wireless temperature sensor node) for continuous recording of neonate body temperature in intensive care unit (ICU). Each wireless thermometer incorporates an accurate semiconductor temperature sensor, a transceiver operating on ISM frequency band (i.e., 915 MHz) as well as a microcontroller which is used to control the thermometers functionalities includ¬ing wireless medium access (e.g., free space or body channel), transmission and reception. A voltage regulator and a low-pass filter were also used for removing spurious signals and environmental noise from the thermometer feed line. In order to distinguish the reading of each thermometer from measurements performed by other thermometers, the I-wire protocol was used. This protocol can securely tag the temperature value by incorpo¬rating a unique ID (provided by the manufacturer) into the packet sent wirelessly. An array of two thermometers was implemented and successfully tested in different scenarios, namely free-space, water (immersed thermometers) and on a volunteer’s wrist. Moreover, an in-house developed computer software was used in order to visualize the readings in addition to alerting rapid increase and high body temperature. The software also compares the measurement results with actual values. The agreement between the experimental data and real temperature values is reasonably acceptable and that of the on-body testing is significant. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE FA

Development Characteristics and Genetic Analysis of Sand-bodies in Taiyuan Formation of Eastern Ordos Basin

On the basis of fully understanding the regional geological background, the changes of lithology, bedding type and sedimentary facies sequence are analyzed according to core, logging and logging data。The three sets of sandstones and their internal structural characteristics of Taiyuan Formation in Ordos Basin are defined. Qiaotou sandstone body is mainly developed in delta distributary channel, which is characterized by large thickness and wide distribution of sandstone body and multi-stage channel superimposition. Malan sandstone and Qiligou sandstone are mainly developed in submarine distributary channel of marine delta. They are relatively small in distribution scale, complex in internal structure of sand bodies, single massive sand bodies or composite sand bodies with thin mudstone interbeds. There are sand dams controlled by marine delta in Taiyuan Formation, which have different shapes and poor continuity. Based on the above results, it is considered that the sand body characteristics are mainly affected by paleo structuer topography, sedimentary environment and local uplift. These understandings are of great significance for judging the development position of high-quality reservoirs in sand bodies and improving the actual effect of oil and gas exploration and development in reservoir sand bodies.

Bio-Physical Modeling, Characterization, and Optimization of Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication.

Human body communication (HBC) has emerged as an alternative to radio wave communication for connecting low power, miniaturized wearable, and implantable devices in, on, and around the human body. HBC uses the human body as the communication channel between on-body devices. Previous studies characterizing the human body channel has reported widely varying channel response much of which has been attributed to the variation in measurement setup. This calls for the development of a unifying bio-physical model of HBC, supported by in-depth analysis and an understanding of the effect of excitation, termination modality on HBC measurements. This paper characterizes the human body channel up to 1MHz frequency to evaluate it as a medium for the broadband communication. The communication occurs primarily in the electro-quasistatic (EQS) regime at these frequencies through the subcutaneous tissues. A lumped bio-physical model of HBC is developed, supported by experimental validations that provide insight into some of the key discrepancies found in previous studies. Voltage loss measurements are carried out both with an oscilloscope and a miniaturized wearable prototype to capture the effects of non-common ground. Results show that the channel loss is strongly dependent on the termination impedance at the receiver end, with up to 4dB variation in average loss for different termination in an oscilloscope and an additional 9 dB channel loss with wearable prototype compared to an oscilloscope measurement. The measured channel response with capacitive termination reduces low-frequency loss and allows flat-band transfer function down to 13KHz, establishing the human body as a broadband communication channel. Analysis of the measured results and the simulation model shows that instruments with 50 Ω input impedance (Vector Network Analyzer, Spectrum Analyzer) provides pessimistic estimation of channel loss at low frequencies. Instead, high impedance and capacitive termination should be used at the receiver end for accurate voltage mode loss measurements of the HBC channel at low frequencies. The experimentally validated bio-physical model shows that capacitive voltage mode termination can improve the low frequency loss by up to 50dB, which helps broadband communication significantly.

Even and odd mode CPW‐fed pattern diversity antenna for body centric communication systems

AbstractA patterns diversity slot antenna loaded with a dielectric resonator is presented for on‐body communication systems in 2.45 GHz band. The diversity is achieved by launching even and odd modes on coplanar feed lines resulting in end‐fire and broadside radiation pattern respectively. Loading of dielectric resonator enhances impedance bandwidth and improves isolation between broadside and end‐fire patterns. A common impedance bandwidth of 4% is obtained along with ports isolation of 22 dB. Diversity gain is calculated for three unique on‐body channels and the maximum diversity gain of 8.5 dB is achieved for nonline‐of‐sight on body channel. Large diversity gain and planar geometry makes this antenna suitable for various on‐body communication applications.

Design of Reliable Body Channel Communication Transceiver with Spread Spectrum Clock Generator and PNR Generator

In this work, the communication of a channel in the human body has a characteristic (time-domain) which can be measured at various distances in transmission and various frequencies of a signal by the printed circuit board-an analog frontend board (PCB-AFE) support. Besides, for the wideband signal of Body Channel Communication (BCC), a human body skin acts within a range of 1 Mb/s to 40 Mb/s as the transmission medium. This communication is more stable and attenuating low power while comparing with all another transmission medium in wireless. Moreover, due to the motion of a human body, this communication doesn't get affected. Though, the body antenna gives effects in the communication of a channel of the human body by occurs some interference. The Manchester data acts as encoder and decoder in transmitter and receiver parts respectively, in an AFE-PCB the Manchester encoder data is amplified after receiving the data from end to end channel of a human body. The data quality is improved by 7X sampler in clock data recovery (CDR) circuit. Therefore, the proposed design of reliable BCC Transceiver with SSCG and PNR Generator is processed in XilinxISE14.5, ModelSim Simulator 6.5a (Quartus II 8.1), and Micro wind software tools. It is also implemented in a XilinxXC9572XL kit. The power consumption and delay is reduced up to 90%, speed is increased up to 50% and leakage current is reduced up to 80% in the transmitter part.

Ω(2012) as a hadronic molecule

Recently the Belle collaboration has discovered a narrow $S=-3$ baryon, the $\Omega(2012)$. We explore the possibility that the $\Omega(2012)$ is a $\Xi(1530)\,\bar K$ molecule, where the binding mechanism is the coupled channel dynamics with the $\Omega\,\eta$ channel. The characteristic signature of a molecular $\Omega(2012)$ will be its decay into the three body channel $\Xi \pi \bar{K}$, for which we expect a partial decay width of $2-3\,{\rm MeV}$. The partial decay width into the $\Xi \bar{K}$ channel should lie in the range of $1-11\,{\rm MeV}$, a figure compatible with experiment and which we have deduced from the assumption that the coupling involved in this decay is of natural size. For comparison purposes the decay of a purely compact $\Omega(2012)$ into the $\Xi \bar{K}$ and $\Xi \pi \bar{K}$ channels is of the same order of magnitude as and one order of magnitude smaller than in the molecular scenario, respectively. This comparison indicates that the current experimental information is insufficient to distinguish between a compact and a molecular $\Omega(2012)$ and further experiments will be required to determine its nature. A molecular $\Omega(2012)$ will also imply the existence of two- and three-body molecular partners. The two-body partners comprise two $\Lambda$ hyperons located at $1740$ and $1950\,{\rm MeV}$ respectively, the first of which might correspond to the $\Lambda(1800)$ while the second to the $\Lambda(2000)$ or the $\Lambda(2050)$. The three-body partners include a $\Xi(1530) K\bar{K}$ and a $\Xi(1530) \eta \bar{K}$ molecule, with masses of $M = 2385-2445\,{\rm MeV}$ and $M = 2434-2503\,{\rm MeV}$ respectively. We might be tempted to identify the first with the $\Xi(2370)$ and the latter with the $\Omega(2470)$ listed in the PDG.