System-Level Design of a Full-Duplex Wireless Transceiver for Brain–Machine Interfaces

We propose a new wireless communication architecture for implanted systems that simultaneously stimulates neurons and record neural responses. This architecture can support large numbers of electrodes (>500), providing 100 Mb/s for the downlink of stimulation signals, and gigabits per second for the uplink of neural recordings. We propose a full-duplex transceiver architecture that shares one antenna for both the ultrawideband (UWB) and the 2.45-GHz industrial, scientific, and medical band. A new pulse shaper is used for the gigabits per second uplink to simplify the transceiver design, while supporting several modulation formats with high data rates. To validate our system-level design for brain-machine interfaces, we present an ex-vivo experimental demonstration of the architecture. While the system design is for an integrated solution, the proof-of-concept demonstration uses discrete components. Good bit error rate performance over a biological channel at 0.5-, 1-, and 2-Gb/s data rates for uplink telemetry (UWB) and 100 Mb/s for downlink telemetry (2.45-GHz band) are achieved.