A Wireless Backscatter, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)-Compatible Biosignal Acquisition System for Integrated Bioelectronics

Bioelectronic devices, such as neural recorders, constrained by size and performance face the challenge of interfacing biological tissue with electronics. We introduce a wireless biosignal acquisition system to record neural signals from a soft micro-electrocorticography (μECoG) array. Eight channels of in vivo data including auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) were recorded in a rodent model at 500 samples/sec per channel and transmitted at up to 1 Mbps using both backscatter and conventional radio uplinks. System characterization demonstrates that the backscatter radio system consumes 20X less power than the conventional off-shelf transmitter. These recordings are the first in vivo demonstration of wireless BLE compatible backscatter communication validating it as a promising option for high-rate uplink in constrained bioelectronics.