A Distance-Immune Low-Power Data-Link for Next-Generation Neuromodulation Systems

Speaker: Alireza Yousefi
Affiliation: Ph.D. Candidate - UCLA

Abstract: 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), hundreds of million people, nearly one in seven of the world’s population, are suffering from neuropsychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, depression, strokes, etc. These disorders can have serious effects on patients’ daily lives and can bring a multitude of motor and non-motor manifestations. Thereby lately there has been a huge trend to develop tools, such as implantable neuromodulators, to study, diagnose, and treat this category of diseases. In these tools, wireless data link is an integral block of the system which decreases the risk of infection in the patient, enhances the patient mobility, and improves his/her comfort and, as a result, the quality of life. In this work, we will introduce a new ultra-low-power, yet robust near-field data link, that can cover a range of 4.5cm while the internal transceiver consumes only 300nW in uplink at 4Mbps and 10μW in downlink at 2Mbps. The designed data link will be deployed in the next generation of human-quality closed-loop neuromodulation systems.

Biography:

Alireza Yousefi is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCLA. Alireza’s research interests include analog and RF circuits, mixed-signal circuits, and ultra-low power systems for biomedical applications. For his Ph.D., he works on a distance-immune, low-power near-field data link that will be employed in the future generations of wireless neural and bionic implants. Alireza is also the recipient of National Elites Foundation Scholarship, UCLA Graduate Division Fellowship, and the Broadcom Foundation Fellowship.

For more information, contact Prof. Asad A. Abidi (abidi@seas.ucla.edu)

or Prof. Dejan Markovic (dejan@ee.ucla.edu)

Date/Time:
Date(s) - Sep 12, 2018
9:00 am - 11:00 am

Location:
E-IV Maxwell Room #57-124
420 Westwood Plaza - 5th Flr. , Los Angeles CA 90095