Experimental evaluation of 30 MHz band implant communication using automatic equalisation technique

Abstract

Wireless body area communication technology is attracting much attention in healthcare and medical applications. For reliable and high-speed implant transmission, the authors previously developed an in-body transceiver at around 30 MHz. However, as the distance between the transmit antenna and the receive antenna gets longer, its bit error rate (BER) performance gets deteriorated. This is because that an implanted channel can cause severe waveform distortion and consequent inter-symbol interference (ISI). Meanwhile, the equalising technique provides a powerful means to counteract ISI. In this study, they developed an automatic equaliser for the 30 MHz band implant communication. Moreover, they implemented the equaliser on a field programmable gate array board and evaluated the BER performance with a biological equivalent liquid phantom. The measurement result shows that their developed equaliser can significantly improve the communication performance in the implant channel.