A Sub-GHz UWB Correlation Receiver for Wireless Biomedical Communication

The advantages of microelectronics can be found in the biomedical industry, where the technology is used in neuroscience, surgical procedures etc. An example of these advantages is wireless communication for biomedical purposes. Wireless communication offers the possibility to enhance the functionality of the implantable device. The work presented is the follow up of a sub-GHz UWB transceiver design for wireless, biomedical communication, of which the receiver aspect of the design was not completed. The primary goal in this work is the design of a suitable receiver architecture, thereby completing the transceiver design. A correlation receiver is presented, which can make use of a pulse generator (that was previously designed for the transmitter in the transceiver design) as its reference. The receiver is thoroughly tested in a test environment in Matlab, and compared with other UWB receiver designs. Research was done on negative influences on the communication link (such as noise and narrowband interference), in order to build a reliable test environment. Simulation results show that the correlation receiver performs better than other receiver architectures (such as an energy detector and a quadrature autocorrelation receiver). Finally, a MOS-only, four-quadrant, low power, 1 GHz multiplier circuit is designed using AustriaMicroSystems 0.18 µm High-Voltage CMOS technology. Its average power consumption is 153.2 uW on a 1.2 V power supply. The circuit design is embedded into the system design of the correlation receiver, where the receiver is again tested for robustness. Simulation results show that the designed multiplier is suitable for the correlation receiver.Section BioelectronicsDepartment of MicroelectronicsElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc