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.
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Such recording systems are often powered by small lightweight batteries or by wireless power transfer.
“Often, such systems are powered using miniaturized and light-weight battery packs [36] or wireless power transfer systems [135].”
From Implantable neurotechnologies: a review of integrated circuit neural amplifiers (2016) · cites this paper as [135]
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- Authors
- Thomas, S. J., Harrison, R. R., Leonardo, A., & Reynolds, M. S.
- Affiliations
- Duke University (US)
- Intan Technologies (United States) (US)
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
- Venue
- IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems
- Published
- 2012-10
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 424-436
- ISSN
- 1932-4545 (ISSN-L)
- 1940-9990
- OpenAlex
- W2062807339
- Cited by
- 117
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 4.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Wireless Body Area Networks
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Analog and Mixed-Signal Circuit Design
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit Design
- Keywords
- electromyography, battery-free operation, RF energy harvesting, backscatter communication, UHF band, on-chip ADC, insect neurophysiology
- MeSH terms
- Amplifiers, Electronic, Animals, Biomedical Engineering, Electromyography, Equipment Design, Flight, Animal, Interneurons, Electric Power Supplies, Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted, Telemetry, Wireless Technology, Odonata
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