title: A battery-free multichannel digital neural/EMG telemetry system for flying insects.
abstract: This paper presents a digital neural/EMG telemetry system small enough and lightweight enough to permit recording from insects in flight. It has a measured flight package mass of only 38 mg. This system includes a single-chip telemetry integrated circuit (IC) employing RF power harvesting for battery-free operation, with communication via modulated backscatter in the UHF (902-928 MHz) band. An on-chip 11-bit ADC digitizes 10 neural channels with a sampling rate of 26.1 kSps and 4 EMG channels at 1.63 kSps, and telemeters this data wirelessly to a base station. The companion base station transceiver includes an RF transmitter of +36 dBm (4 W) output power to wirelessly power the telemetry IC, and a digital receiver with a sensitivity of -70 dBm for 10⁻⁵ BER at 5.0 Mbps to receive the data stream from the telemetry IC. The telemetry chip was fabricated in a commercial 0.35 μ m 4M1P (4 metal, 1 poly) CMOS process. The die measures 2.36 × 1.88 mm, is 250 μm thick, and is wire bonded into a flex circuit assembly measuring 4.6 × 6.8 mm.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA. stewart.t@gmail.com
authors.forename: Stewart J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: Reid R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Harrison
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Leonardo
authors.forename: Matthew S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Reynolds
mesh_terms: D000669:Amplifiers, Electronic; D000818:Animals; D001698:Biomedical Engineering; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004576:Electromyography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D005426:Flight, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D007395:Interneurons / Q000502:physiology; D063191:Odonata / Q000502:physiology*; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation; D013686:Telemetry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D059015:Wireless Technology / Q000295:instrumentation