Design Considerations for a Sub-mW Wireless Medical Body-Area Network Receiver Front End

Abstract

Wireless medical body-area networks are used to connect sensor nodes that monitor vital parameters. The radio consumes a large portion of the sensor energy budget, and hence its power dissipation should be minimized. The low-noise amplifier (LNA) is an important component of the receiver, and must guarantee low-noise amplification and impedance matching. In this work, an ultra-low-voltage ultra-low-power LNA is proposed that, thanks to the proposed transformer-based gate boosting technique, has a reduced current consumption of only 160 μA and can operate with a supply as low as 0.18 V. The LNA was designed using 40 nm Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology and features a voltage gain of 14 dB, 5.2 dB NF and −8.6 dBm IIP3. This performance is comparable to a prior work by the same authors, but with the minimum supply voltage reduced by a factor of 4x.

Radio Channel Study for Colon Capsule Endoscopy with Low-Band UWB Multiple Antenna System

“…Only the most outermost locations, like capsule location A and F are the most challenging since in those locations, there is only one on-body antenna in the vicinity of the capsule. However, since the fat is relatively good propagation channel [20], [21], the reasonable channel attenuation level is obtained for the next closest antennas as well. Additionally, the location B2, which is in the deepest part of the colon, is a challenging location since the propagation loss is high in the colon.…”

Editorial for the Special Issue on Wireless Microdevices and Systems for Biomedical Applications

“…Kargaran et al [1] proposes a new ultra-low-voltage ultra-low-power LNA, where the reduced current consumption of only 160 μA, on a supply as low as 0.18 V, has potential to enable future RF receivers for ultra-low-power implantable devices. Lo et al [2] presents an implantable functional electrical stimulation (IFES) for gastrointestinal (GI) tract modulation to treat GI dysmotility.…”