In situ characterization of two wireless transmission schemes for ingestible capsules

Wang, L., Drysdale, T.D. and Cumming, D.R.S. (2007) In situ characterization of two wireless transmission schemes for ingestible capsules. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 54(11), pp. 2020-2027. (doi: 10.1109/TBME.2007.895105)

Abstract

We report the experimental in situ characterization of 30-40 MHz and 868 MHz wireless transmission schemes for ingestible capsules, in porcine carcasses. This includes a detailed study of the performance of a magnetically coupled near-field very high-frequency (VHF) transmission scheme that requires only one eighth of the volume and one quarter of the power consumption of existing 868-MHz solutions. Our in situ measurements tested the performance of four different capsules specially constructed for this study (two variants of each transmission scheme), in two scenarios. One mimicked the performance of a body-worn receiving coil, while the other allowed the characterization of the direction-dependent signal attenuation due to losses in the surrounding tissue. We found that the magnetically coupled near-field VHF telemetry scheme presents an attractive option for future, miniturized ingestible capsules for medical applications.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: Biomedical telemetry, UHF radio propagation, VHF radio propagation, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methods.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Cumming, Professor David and Drysdale, Dr Timothy
• Authors: Wang, L., Drysdale, T.D., and Cumming, D.R.S.
• Subjects: R Medicine > R Medicine (General); Q Science > QC Physics; T Technology > T Technology (General)
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering
• Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
• Publisher: IEEE
• ISSN: 0018-9294
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2007 IEEE
• First Published: First published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering 54(11):2020-2027
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher