In-vivo signal transmission using an intra-corporal RF transmitter

• Published in: 2011 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Vol. 2011; pp. 7662 - 7665
• Main Authors: Just, T., Laqua, D., Husar, P.
• Format: Conference Proceeding Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01-01-2011
• Subjects: Animals; Attenuation; Biomedical measurements; Electronics, Medical; Humans; Radio frequency; Radio transmitters; Radio Waves; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; Sus scrofa; Telemetry - instrumentation; Temperature measurement; Wireless Technology
• ISBN: 9781424441211; 1424441218
• ISSN: 1094-687X; 1557-170X; 1558-4615
• DOI: 10.1109/IEMBS.2011.6091888

In clinical routine, measurements of human physiological parameters are very important. In this paper, a study of RF transmission from the inside to the outside of a biological body is described. In the course of this work, an overview of the state of the art of wireless biotelemetry and the basics of biological tissue attenuation are given. In addition, several prototype transmitters were designed and developed with frequencies ranging from 50 to 700 MHz. With these transmitters a study of an in-vivo transmission was run to measure realistic attenuation values of a living biological subject. In the evaluation phase, a prototype transmitter was placed in the esophagus, near the heart, of a narcotized living pig. This allows demonstrating the transmission out of an animal with human-like tissue properties. The results show a possible transmission at 58, 119, 240, 418 and 672 MHz with acceptable loss.