Optical transcutaneous link for low power, high data rate telemetry

A low power and high data rate wireless optical link for implantable data transmission is presented in this paper. In some neural prosthetic applications particularly in regard to neural recording system, there is a demand for high speed communication between an implanted device and an external device. An optical transcutaneous link is a promising implantable telemetry solution, since it shows lower power requirements than RF telemetry. In this paper, this advantage is further enhanced by using a modified on-off keying and a simple custom designed low power VCSEL driver. This transmitter achieves an optical transcutaneous link capable of transmitting data at 50 Mbps through the 4 mm tissue, with a tolerance of 2 mm misalignment and a BER of less than 10^-5, while the power consumption is only 4.1 mW or less.