title: On the Design of a Flexible Stimulator for Animal Studies in Auditory Prostheses.
abstract: The present paper describes the design of two stimulators (bench-top and portable) which can be used for animal studies in cochlear implants. The bench-top stimulator is controlled by a high-speed digital output board manufactured by National Instruments and is electrically isolated. The portable stimulator is controlled by a personal digital assistant (PDA) and is based on a custom interface board that communicates with the signal processor in the PDA through the secure digital IO (SDIO) slot. Both stimulators can provide 8 charge-balanced, bipolar channels of pulsatile and analog-like electrical stimulation, delivered simultaneously, interleaved or using a combination of both modes. Flexibility is provided into the construction of arbitrary, but charge-balanced, pulse shapes, which can be either symmetric or asymmetric.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas at Dallas, Department of Electrical Engineering, Richardson, TX 75080-3021, USA.
authors.forename: Douglas
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Vanishree
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gopalakrishna
authors.forename: Song
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Hoi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Murat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Torlak
authors.forename: Nasser
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kehtarnavaz
authors.forename: Arthur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lobo
authors.forename: Philipos C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Loizou