Microwave Communication Links for Brain Interface Applications
L. Larson and A. Nurmikko
Brown University
Abstract — Recent experiments have demonstrated the
ability of neuroscientists to gain direct access to neural
signals in real time, and decode the resulting information to
control various prosthetic devices. This - along with deep
brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease and a variety of
other conditions - extrapolates to a premise that widespread
"brain interface" medical device technologies are a real (if
long term) possibility. This paper will summarize the various
approaches that have been introduced specifically to
wirelessly communicate with the brain, including
microelectronics technology constraints, power limits, data
compression and rate issues.
I. INTRODUCTION
The potential of Brain-Machine Interface (BMI)
technology to revolutionize the lives of victims of
neurological injuries from stroke, spinal cord injury, etc. is
enormous, and has been a very active area of research for
many years [1]-[5]. Estimates show that well over 100,000
people in the United States alone could benefit [6]. At the
same time, the scientific challenges associated with BMI
technology are profound and far from being solved, as
they require a deep understanding of neural systems and
their connection to sensation, movement and more
complex behavior. Likewise, much work lies ahead for
advancing understanding of the relationship between our
imperfect measurements of neural behavior and the
underlying neural system, and development of a safe,
robust and reliable medical device technology.
Today, the most direct access to brain microcircuits for
recording of neural data from a group of neurons is
typically accomplished by insertion of an intracortical
multi-electrode [7] array directly into the cortex. This
approach is used by neuroscientists to investigate e.g.
motor behavior from the measured neural dynamics
operating at cellular level networks.
The current technology is both promising, yet
embryonic, and has been used to demonstrate limited
control of assistive devices, such as a robotic arm to
demonstrate the restoration for patients of certain degree
of upper limb motor capabilities [2].
But since the number of cortical neurons that can be
routinely sampled through state-of-the-art implantable
microprobes is a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions
of neurons that form a human cortex, new microscale
recording and neural stimulation methods are required to
implement robust BMI technology. Estimates indicate that
978-1-5090-1688-4/16/$31.00 © 2016 IEEE
a BMI device aimed at restoring complete limb
movements may require simultaneous measurement of
5,000–10,000 neurons, and measurement of roughly
100,000 neurons will be needed to produce full body
movements [8]. Similar values are likely to provide a truly
biomimetic restoration of lost sensory functions (vision,
auditory, sense of touch, sense of smell, etc).
Finally, the BMI device must allow the patient to
operate in a fully untethered manner, free from the
constraints of a cumbersome wiring harness tethered to a
computer interface. This last point suggests that robust
low-power bi-directional, implanted, wireless transmission
of the large amounts of real-time neural data is one key
enabling technology for future BMI.
This paper will outline the technical challenges
associated with development of high performance wireless
BMI interfaces, particularly for “reading out” neural
information, and suggest research directions for future
enabling technology.
II. ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF NEURAL SIGNALS
Implanted multi-electrode arrays typically receive
signals from a variety of neural sources in the brain, and
each probe essentially “aggregates” the inputs from the
local environment. The major components of this signal at
a given probe are the extracellular neural action potentials
– often referred to as “spikes” - a local field potential
(LFP) that represents a lower frequency “average” of the
extracellular environment, and finally a relatively large
DC offset voltage.
The electrical characteristics of the received signal –
due to changes in both the probes and the local
environment - presently degrade over a long period of
time (> 1 year) after the implant, in a poorly understood
manner. Thus improving the biocompatibility of e.g. the
intracortical probe technology is an area of active
research, since BMIs for human use have to operate
reliably for up to decades. Some of the challenges are due
to electrode encapsulation by fibrous tissue by
immunological reactions in the vicinity of the implanted
electrode, and various electrode coating techniques have
been suggested to minimize such effects [9]. Likewise,
improving the microfabrication of the neural microprobe
arrays is a task made challenging by the integration of
73 SiRF 2016
inorganic and organic materials typically required for III. WIRELESS CIRCUIT AND SYSTEM DESIGN FOR BMI
these neural implants. TECHNOLOGY
For the received signals, base elements of the neural
The preceding overview highlights the need for an
code, neural spikes or action potentials are of ~msec in
ambitious wireless interface for future BMIs. RF
duration. They result from one neuron to several neurons
telecommunication techniques are a first choice although
“firing” in the vicinity of the electrode tip. Peak
ongoing research is also examining optical and acoustic
magnitudes vary over a wide range - from as little as 10
telemetries. Today’s 100 electrode array requires a data
μV to slightly over 1 mV – and depend on the separation
rate of roughly 25 MB/sec. Future electronic interfaces to
between the neuron and electrode and a variety of other
the brain are envisioned to have thousands or tens of
factors [10]. These signals are “high-frequency” in nature,
thousands of local nodes, resulting in bi-directional data
with frequency content in the ~1 kHz range.
rates in the Gb/sec range. (We do not address here the
Since the spacing between the electrodes (roughly 500
challenges of “writing-in” information to the brain by e.g.
μm) is relatively large compared to the distance between
spatio-temporal patterned electrical stimulation except to
neurons (roughly 30 μm), each neuron only provides
note that the corresponding data rates for motor, visual,
signals to one probe, but each probe receives signals from
audio and other prostheses will ultimately require
many neurons simultaneously. In order to separate the
comparable data rates e.g. for fully biomimetic sensory
resulting signals from each other, “spike sorting”
proxies).
algorithms are used to isolate individual neurons. [11].
At the same time, the local environment is extremely
The local field potential (LFP) signals typically have
challenging for deployment of any high data rate body-
some resemblance to a “1/f” spectrum, and are attributed
implanted telemetry system. Safety reasons dictate that
to the collective synaptic behavior of a much larger set of
local heating of the brain not exceed 1-2oC, which implies
neurons combined with the high frequency attenuation
a strict dc power limit of roughly 100mW for the BMI
properties of the inter-cellular environment. The origin,
(which is typically implanted in or above the skull right
precise mechanism, and utility for neural decoding of the
above the brain). Furthermore, SAR limits of roughly
LFPs is an area of active research [12]. Once the complex
0.4W/kg of absorbed RF power further limit potential data
time-varying neural signals have been recorded
link performance. Typical lithium battery energy densities
simultaneously from a small network of neurons,
limit the stored energy to roughly 1W-Hr, so frequent
sophisticated computational methods, based on statistical
recharging is another concern, driving system design to
and machine learning techniques must be applied for
the lowest possible dc power consumption.
decoding the neural language [e.g. 3,4], a major
Additionally, the RF signal might propagate through
contemporary area of research. Since the brain is
layers of bone, dura, fat and skin, and the resulting
continuously active and “multitasking” across all its
attenuation can be considerable. The most common
circuits, decoding must also subtract the background
approaches for BMI place the electronics directly under
neural “noise” which does not correspond to the neural
the scalp in an implanted hermetically sealed package,
function of interest.
with a wire array connecting the electrode array through
Given the bandwidth of the signal appearing at each
the skull to the brain, and so the signal propagation
microelectrode probe tip, most reported intracortical BMI
through the skin is typically 10-20 dB at lower microwave
systems sample the resulting signal at approximately 20
frequencies on the order of 1 GHz [14].
KHz, with 10-12 bit ADC resolution – with a resulting
Clearly, the RF wireless circuit and system challenges
data rate of roughly 250 kb/sec per probe. However, it is
for future BMI systems are exciting; a multi-GB/sec bi-
still unclear what if any redundancy in the data may exist
directional wireless link operating at <100 mW of dc
for pragmatic neuroprosthesis use [13]. Local data
power, transmitting and receiving through a lossy
compression techniques may thus be an effective for
medium, a very minimal form factor (10-20 cm3 or less),
reducing overall data rate, in the same way that a vocoder
with the highest possible standards of reliability and
exploits the redundancy of speech signals to reduce
safety.
cellphone data rates. Although this redundancy in the
Bandwidth efficiency – a common concern in wide area
neural signals has not been widely exploited yet in actual
networks and cellular systems – do not yet apply in this
BMI systems, it is yet another area of active research.
current state-of-the-art, so simple-low-power modulation
schemes (FSK, OOK, BPSK) have been employed in most
systems deployed to date [15]. However, widespread
deployment of BMIs might well lead to spectrum
crowding in the future. As a result, more sophisticated

74
MAC protocols, modulation techniques and dedicated
spectrum will inevitably be required for widespread
deployment of future BMI systems. In the context of
wireless implanted biomedical devices, a critical
regulatory challenge exists in accommodating both FDA
and FCC stringent requirements.
The question of appropriate carrier frequency for
wireless BMI systems is also being actively studied.
Current designs operate in the 0.5-5 GHz range with
telemetry unit immediately below the skin, which appears
to provide an acceptable tradeoff between data rate and
attenuation due to tissue loss, although future systems
requiring GB/sec data rates will encourage the move to
higher frequencies. 60 GHz has also been examined for
BMI applications for Gb/sec applications, but tissue loss
through the skin was estimated to be 145 dB (!) and so the
interface antenna was moved to the skin surface [16].
Given the fact that the overall power budget for the
BMI should be considerably less than 100 mW, this limits
the power dissipation of the RF section to be in the 20
mW or less regime. So, transmitter design for BMIs
require maintenance of a very high dc-RF efficiency at
low transmit powers (roughly 3 dBm or less) but high data
rates, while maintaining a small form factor. Achieving
high dc-RF efficiency at relatively low output powers can
be a challenge, because of the high impedance required at
microwave frequencies. PA topologies that can exceed
traditional Class-A efficiencies at low output power levels
are of general interest here.
The design in [15] employed a current-reuse scheme
and Class-B tuning to achieve optimum transmitter
efficiency. Transmitted power was roughly 0 dBm at 35
MB/sec, and overall transmitter power consumption was
less than 15 mW. Future BMI transmitters may require
non-constant-envelope modulation schemes to achieve
greater bandwidth efficiency, which will result in greater
efficiency challenges for the power amplifier.
In order to minimize form-factor, crystal-less frequency
synthesis is often employed, where an ultra-low phase-
noise oscillator runs open-loop, and is designed for low
temperature sensitivity, low power supply sensitivity and
is trimmed for overall frequency accuracy [15, 17]. The
resulting minor performance degradation is usually
acceptable for the simple modulation schemes employed
to date.
Small form-factor antenna design is also a challenge for
future BMI systems, since fundamental physical limits
dictate an upper range for antenna efficiency and gain as a
function of volume [18]. Typical BMIs designs today
employ bow-tie, loop, folded dipole or fractal-based
antennas to achieve the best performance in a small form-
factor planar configuration [19].
75
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