TY - GEN
T1 - Towards an Untethered Ultrasound Beamforming System for Brain Stimulation in Behaving Animals
AU - Seok, Chunkyun
AU - Ali, Ziad
AU - Yamaner, F. Yalcin
AU - Sahin, Mesut
AU - Oralkan, Omer
N1 - Funding Information:
*Research supported by the National Institutes of Health under Grant EY028456.
Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors thank Jeanne Sanders for help with data acquisition setups, and Steve Lipa for wire bonding the CMUT array and the IC. This work was performed in part at the NCSU Nanofabrication Facility (NNF) and the Analytical Instrumentation Facility (AIF) at North Carolina State University. Both NNF and AIF are members of the North Carolina Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network (RTNN), which is supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant ECCS-1542015) as part of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI). AIF is also supported by the State of North Carolina.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 IEEE.
PY - 2018/10/26
Y1 - 2018/10/26
N2 - In this paper, we present a wireless ultrasound transmit (TX) beamforming system, potentially enabling wearable brain stimulation for small awake/behaving animals. The system is comprised of a 16-element capacitive micromachined transducer (CMUT) array, driven by a custom phased-array integrated circuit (IC), which is capable of generating high-voltage (13.5 V) excitation signals with sixteen phase delays and four amplitude levels. In addition, a Bluetooth low-energy module and a power management unit were integrated into the system, which realizes a battery-operated self-contained unit. We validated the functionality of the system by demonstrating beamforming and steering with a hydrophone measurement setup. We achieved an acoustic pressure output of 554 kPapp at the depth of 5 mm, which corresponds to a spatial-peak pulse-average intensity (ISPPA) of 2.9 W/cm2. The measured 6-dB beamwidth (0.4 mm) is promising in that it can stimulate a specific region of the brain, especially for small animals such as mice. Further smart partitioning of the system will enable a truly wearable device for small animals.
AB - In this paper, we present a wireless ultrasound transmit (TX) beamforming system, potentially enabling wearable brain stimulation for small awake/behaving animals. The system is comprised of a 16-element capacitive micromachined transducer (CMUT) array, driven by a custom phased-array integrated circuit (IC), which is capable of generating high-voltage (13.5 V) excitation signals with sixteen phase delays and four amplitude levels. In addition, a Bluetooth low-energy module and a power management unit were integrated into the system, which realizes a battery-operated self-contained unit. We validated the functionality of the system by demonstrating beamforming and steering with a hydrophone measurement setup. We achieved an acoustic pressure output of 554 kPapp at the depth of 5 mm, which corresponds to a spatial-peak pulse-average intensity (ISPPA) of 2.9 W/cm2. The measured 6-dB beamwidth (0.4 mm) is promising in that it can stimulate a specific region of the brain, especially for small animals such as mice. Further smart partitioning of the system will enable a truly wearable device for small animals.
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U2 - 10.1109/EMBC.2018.8512551
DO - 10.1109/EMBC.2018.8512551
M3 - Conference contribution
C2 - 30440697
AN - SCOPUS:85056669984
T3 - Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS
SP - 1596
EP - 1599
BT - 40th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2018
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 40th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2018
Y2 - 18 July 2018 through 21 July 2018
ER -