Implant Communication

What does the industry call the implant communication?

How is an implant Communicated with?

Blue Tooth interface between implants?

Communication between implants

What does the industry call the implant communication?

The Use of Telemetry-Evoked Compound Action Potentials (TECAP) in Cochlear Implantation, 4th International Workshop on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks (BSN 2007), March 26 – 28, 2007 RWTH Aachen University, Germany

IFMBE Proceedings, Steffen Leonhardt, Thomas Falck and Petri Mähönen

Telemetry-Evoked compound Action Potentials (TECAP)

Along with the principles of stimulation and recording of TECAPs, two cases are presented which highlight their diagnostic value as well as their limitations.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/q27j37241t530nqm/

Action potential

The action potential is the electrical impulse that travels along nerve cells, facilitating communication throughout the brain and peripheral nervous

A local membrane depolarization caused by an excitatory stimulus causes some voltage-gated sodium channels in the neuron cell surface membrane to open, allowing sodium ions to diffuse in through the channels along their electrochemical gradient.

Action potentials propagate faster in axons of larger diameter, other things being equal. They typically travel from 10 – 100 m/s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential

Signal (biology)

In biology a signal or biopotential is an electric quantity (voltage or current or field strength), caused by chemical reactions of charged ions. Another use of the term lies in describing the transfer of information between and within cells, as in signal transduction. Biological signals can also be seen as an example of signal (information theory).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signals_%28biology%29

See the following diagram explaining an axons action potential

http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=54745&rendTypeId=4

Upon stimulation, these ion channels propagate the action potential (large green arrows) to the next node. Thus, the action potential jumps along the fibre as it is regenerated at each node, a process called saltatory conduction.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/art/print?id=66781&articleTypeId=1

Functional electrical stimulation

Functional electrical stimulation (commonly abbreviated as FES) is a technique that uses electrical currents to activate nerves innervating extremities affected by paralysis resulting from spinal cord injury (SCI), head injury, stroke or other neurological disorders, restoring function in people with disabilities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_electrical_stimulation

Electrochemical neuron systems

a neuron or neuron target cell-electrode interface in order to affect cell membrane potential.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20040122475.html

Paresthesia, neurotransmitter

http://www.ans-medical.com/

Electric neurostimulators

http://www.springerlink.com/content/q940g1375654r605/

How is an implant Communicated with?

preliminary study of an implanted device powered by an inductive link for the telemetry of the epicardic electrocardiogram and the radionuclide activity of the left ventricle

Z Hamici et al 1995 Phys. Med. Biol. 40 609-627 doi:10.1088/0031-9155/40/4/008

a cardiac implant, a miniature transmitter positioned externally on the chest and a remote receiver system allowing the processing of the cardiac function data. The transcutaneous magnetic link permits the power transfer in order to energize the electronic implant, and permits the telemetry of the electrocardiogram and the radionuclide data between the implant and the external receiver system. The nuclear activity measured by a photodiode for gamma rays based on cadmium telluride, with pulse width modulation, constitutes the carrier of the electrocardiographic activity. The composite signal is transmitted by means of the implant impedance modulation.

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0031-9155/40/4/008

Cardiology, patient monitoring

Medtronic launches implantable cardiac devices with wireless telemetry in Europe

19 June 2006

These are Medtronic's first cardiac rhythm disease management devices with wireless telemetry, enabling communication remotely between the implanted device and programmers in a clinician's office and at implant, or between the device and a patient home monitor.

The devices allow heart patients to automatically receive visual notification on a home monitor called the PatientLook Indicator when their device detects an alert.

"With the advent of wireless communication between implantable cardiac devices and programmers, as well as home monitors, we see new opportunities for more convenient and more effective implants, device management and patient care," said Professor and Dr. of Medicine Christina Unterberg-Buchwald of University Hospital Gottingen, Germany.

Conexus Wireless Telemetry with SmartRadio Technology: utilising the Medical Implant Communication Service (MICS) radio frequency band, 402-405 MHz, Medtronic Conexus Telemetry enables reliable communication between the patient's implanted device and home monitor or clinician programmer at a range of two to five meters. The MICS band is a frequency designated by global telecommunications regulatory authorities for implantable medical device communication. It protects wireless medical devices from interference caused by cellular or cordless phones and other common electronic devices, providing a level of protection that cannot be offered by systems that use other frequencies.

http://www.mtbeurope.info/news/2006/606015.htm

Zarlink Simplifies Design of Medical Telemetry Systems Linking Implanted Devices and Monitoring Equipment

18.09.2007 23:30 - Source: Zarlink Semiconductor PR

Zarlink’s ZL70101 radio frequency (RF) transceiver chip is being designed into a range of implanted medical devices, including pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), neurostimulators, drug pumps and physiological monitors, and associated external monitoring and programming equipment.

The ZLE70101 Application Development Kit (ADK) demonstrates the high data rate, ultra low-power and reliable communication link supported by the ZL70101 transceiver. The highly integrated RF chip delivers data rates up to 800 kbps and operates in the Medical Implant Communication Service (MICS) 402-405 MHz band. The chip typically consumes 5 milliamps (mA) of supply current in full operation, while incorporating a unique “wake-up” receiver that allows the device to operate in an extremely low current 250 nanoamp (nA) “sleep” mode.

http://www.eedigest.com/mnfs/Zarlink-Simplifies-Design-of-Medical-Telemetry-Systems-Linking-Implanted-Devices-and-Monitoring-Equipment/

Improving Data Transfer and Battery Life for Implanted Devices

Before a portion of the RF spectrum was set aside, WMTS devices operated on an unlicensed basis in the vacant TV channel spectrum (174–216 MHz and 470–668 MHz) or on a secondary licensed basis in the private land mobile radio band (450–470 MHz).

http://www.cmdm.com/article.php/ArticleID/2144?lang=en&

RSS-243 - Active Medical Implant Communications System Devices in the 402-405 MHz Band

This Radio Standards Specification (RSS) sets out the minimum requirements for the certification of transmitters and receivers used in radio communication systems which provide medical implant communication in the 402-405 MHz band, namely the Medical Implant Communication System (MICS) and the Medical Implant Telemetry System (MITS). These devices are defined as Category I equipment as per RSS-Gen.

MITS is used to provide transmission of data on a periodic basis (non-medical event related). MITS operate in the 403.5‑403.8 MHz band and shall only provide one-way, non-voice digital communications from an active medical implant transmitter to an external receiver.

http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/smt-gst.nsf/en/sf08184e.html

SCADA and telemetry experts, Trio DataCom are leaders in wireless digital data radio modem technology and have established an enviable reputation as suppliers of digital data radio modems for use in Point to Multi Point (MAS) data radio communication systems as well as Point to Point data links.

Suitable for use in both Point to Multi Point and Point to Point wireless data systems.

Setting the standard for professional, high speed serial data communications in the license-free 900MHz ISM band,

http://www.triodatacom.com/

Miri Technologies

450DR Radio Modem

Transmit your data over radio with a fully integrated 400-520MHz DATA RADIO MODEM

HMIs (Human Machine Interfaces) – Hardware that is not implanted

http://www.miri.com.au/Prodserv_450DR.htm

Michael Murray

Sales Representative - Customer Support

Trio Datacom Pty Ltd

Manufacture data radios in the licensed 370 - 520MHz band and the licensed 853 - 929MHz band.

Trio also utilises spread spectrum technology that operates from 915 - 928MHz in Australia.

US Government Torture

150-200 mhz

http://www.us-government-torture.com/KIT.html

Frequencies Used by Bugs and Surveillance Technology

150.000 - 216.000 mhz Typical VHF "Body Wire" & Pro-Grade Bugs

109.000 - 140.000 mhz Digital VHF Pro-Grade Bugs

138.000 - 174.000 mhz Typical "Spy Shop" & LE Cheap VHF Bugs

http://www.hamradio-online.com/1996/feb/bugging.html

Shortwave

Shortwave radio operates between the frequencies of 3 MHz (3000 kHz) and 30 MHz ... Extreme interference at the upper edge of the 150-200 meter band

Shortwave propagation

Shortwave frequencies are capable of reaching any location on the Earth because they can be refracted by the ionosphere (a phenomenon known as Skywave propagation). The selection of a frequency to use to reach a target area depends on several factors:

The distance from the transmitter to the target receiver.

Time of day. During the day, frequencies higher than approximately 12 MHz can travel longer distances than lower ones; at night, this property is reversed. The dependence on the time of the day is due to a particular transient atmosphere ionized layer known as the D Layer, forming only during day when photons from the sun break up atoms into ions and free electrons. This layer is responsible for partial or total absorption of particular frequencies.

Season. During the winter months the AM broadcast band tends to be more favorable because of longer hours of darkness.

Solar activity. Sunspots, solar flares, and overall solar variation affect the ionosphere. Solar flares can prevent the ionosphere from reflecting or refracting radio waves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortwave

SWSCAN Shortwave Radio Broadcast Prediction

On shortwave, radio stations have complex schedules. And propagation changes every hour. Which station is active right now? And what signal can I expect? These are key questions. This tool will guide you through the short wave jungle.

The software will create a time- and day-specific bandscan of any shortwave segment including a signal strength prediction (the dB column)

http://radiovibrations.com/swbrowse.htm

This software interacts problematic with modern high speed PCs. The COM-port is often blocked with WinXP or Win98SE for reasons I couldn't completely figure out. It worked best with old 486 and Windows 3.11. back then. It's been written in Turbo Pascal 6.0.

PeerAxel@aol.com

Integration of MNT, biomaterials and wireless comms as an enabler for medical implants and diagnostic equipment

February 2007

Product	Carrier freq for data
Glaucoma sensor	27.3 MHz
Retina implant	IR
Electrical Stimulation	403 MHz (MICS)
Cochlear implant	5 MHz
ICP sensor	13.56 MHz

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/phs_2007/docs/slides/phs2007-hodgins-s1c.pdf

Blue Tooth interface between implants?

Bluetooth is the name for a short-range radio frequency (RF) technology that operates at 2.4 GHz and is capable of transmitting voice and data. The effective range of Bluetooth devices is 32 feet (10 meters). Bluetooth transfers data at the rate of 1 Mbps, which is from three to eight times the average speed of parallel and serial ports, respectively.

Bluetooth radios operate on the unlicensed 2.4 GHz (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) frequency band that is shared among other devices (microwave ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers, etc. ). Bluetooth radios switch frequencies at such a rapid pace (1,600 times per second) and the data packets are so small that interference from other RF sources is highly unlikely. Bluetooth is a robust communication system.

Bluetooth is extremely secure in that it employs several layers of data encryption and user authentication measures. Bluetooth devices use a combination of the Personal Identification Number (PIN) and a Bluetooth address to identify other Bluetooth devices. Data encryption (i.e., 128-bit) can be used to further enhance the degree of Bluetooth security. The transmission scheme (FHSS) provides another level of security in itself. Instead of transmitting over one frequency within the 2.4 GHz band, Bluetooth radios use a fast frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) technique, allowing only synchronized receivers to access the transmitted data.

Frequency-Hopping Spread-Spectrum (FHSS) is a spread spectrum modulation scheme that uses a narrowband carrier that changes frequency in a pattern known to both transmitter and receiver. Properly synchronized, they maintain a single logical channel. To an unintended receiver, FHSS appears as short-duration impulse noise. More simply, the data is broken down into packets and transmitted to the receiver of other devices over numerous "hop frequencies" (79 total) in a pseudo random pattern. Only transmitters and receivers that are synchronized on the same hop frequency pattern will have access to the transmitted data. The transmitter switches hop frequencies 1,600 times per second to assure a high degree of data security

Bluetooth is designed for very low power use, and the transmission range will only be 10m, about 30ft

Bluetooth radios are very low power, drawing as little as 0.3mA in standby mode and 30mA during sustained data transmissions. Bluetooth radios alternate among power-saving modes in which device activity is lowered to maximize the mobile power supply.

The Bluetooth specification 1.0 describes the link encryption algorithm as a stream cipher using 4 LFSR (linear feedback shift registers). The sum of the width of the LFSRs is 128, and the spec says "the effective key length is selectable between 8 and 128 bits".

http://www.mobileinfo.com/Bluetooth/FAQ.htm#t3

WiFi and Bluetooth fight for bandwidth

Both wireless protocols operate in the 2.40- to 2.48-GHz ISM (industrial, scientific, and medical) RF band. WiFi uses one of 12 overlapping channels of 22-MHz bandwidth each, and Bluetooth frequency-hops among 79 1-MHz channels evenly spaced across the band.

http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA629312

Communication between implants

The choice between Optical fibre communication or Telemetry?

Design of a High Speed Transcutaneous Optical Telemetry Link.

Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2006 ;1 (1):2932-2935 17871670

[My paper] D Ackermann , K Kilgore , P Peckham , B Smith

In some neural prosthetic applications there is a need for high bandwidth communication between an implanted device and an external device. For example, transmitting 100 channels of neural waveform data for a cortical prosthetic control system may require up to 40 Mbps for a 100 channel array. Due to the high bandwidth required and its relative immunity from interference, optical telemetry is the most realistic method for achieving a clinically robust transcutaneous communication system capable of achieving these data rates. It is proposed that a transcutaneous optical telemetry link design can be optimized to system level design parameters (power consumption, implant location, etc.) by having a quantified understanding of the different link level design parameters (optical power, lens size, tissue effects, transmitter-receiver alignment, etc.) and an understanding as to how those parameters interact, and will allow for a design guided by an a priori assessment of these parameters. Some of these design factors and their interactions are identified and described. One of these parameters, the tissue optical spatial impulse response is measured empirically for several porcine dermal tissue configurations, and it's implications for device design tradeoffs are discussed.

http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:17871670

Index

R a n d a l l M o r t o n BBus BComp BPsych

Implant Communication

What does the industry call the implant communication?

How is an implant Communicated with?

Blue Tooth interface between implants?

Communication between implants