A wireless communication link for a miniature, implantable neuromodulation system

Abstract

Neuromodulation is a promising treatment for a variety of otherwise intractable medical conditions. Current neuromodulation devices are large, single-purpose, and limited in functionality. Draper developed a novel, implantable neuromodulation system to address these shortcomings. The system is wireless and networked, and it consists of one external transceiver and multiple implants. The primary contributions of this project included demonstration of stimulation with an implant through a wired interface, demonstration and characterization of a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connection with an implant, and demonstration of stimulation on an implant from a command sent through BLE. The primary challenges of the project were to understand, debug, and validate a complex embedded system. When evaluating BLE performance, a BLE connection interval of 10ms led to a mean latency of 21.2ms with a standard deviation of 6.9ms. The BLE hardware consumed 0.66mW when idle and 3.5mW when connected.