Wireless networks of electronically controlled implantable medical sensors and actuators will be the basis of many innovative and potentially revolutionary therapies. The biggest obstacle in realizing this vision of networked implants is posed by the dielectric nature of the human body, which strongly attenuates radio-frequency (RF) electromagnetic waves. In this paper we present the first hardware and software architecture of an Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) platform with ultrasonic connectivity for intra-body communications. This platform can be used as a basis for building future IoT-ready medical implants and wearable devices. We demonstrate that ultrasonic waves can be efficiently generated and received with low-power mm-sized components, and that despite the conversion loss introduced by ultrasonic transducers, the attenuation of 2.4 GHz RF is substantially greater than ultrasound, e.g., ultrasound attenuates 70 dB less than RF at distances over 10 cm. We show that the proposed IoMT platform requires significantly less transmission power than 2.4 GHz RF with equal reliability, e.g., 35 dBm less at distances over 12 cm with 10 ⁻³ Bit Error Rate (BER) thus enabling a lower energy per bit and a longer device lifetime. Finally, we experimentally establish 2.4 GHz RF links do not function at distances greater than 12 cm, while ultrasonic links achieve a reliability of 10 ⁻⁶ BER up to a distance of 20 cm with less than 0 dBm transmission power.

中文翻译：

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用于医疗物联网的可植入超声网络平台的设计和性能评估

电子控制的植入式医疗传感器和执行器的无线网络将成为许多创新和潜在革命性疗法的基础。实现网络植入物这一远景的最大障碍是人体的介电特性，它会大大衰减射频（RF）电磁波。在本文中，我们介绍了具有超声连接功能的医疗物联网（IoMT）平台的第一个硬件和软件体系结构，用于体内通信。该平台可以用作构建未来可用于IoT的医疗植入物和可穿戴设备的基础。我们证明了可以用低功率mm尺寸的组件高效地产生和接收超声波，并且尽管超声波换能器引入了转换损耗，但衰减为2。4 GHz射频实质上大于超声波，例如，超声波在10厘米以上的距离处比射频衰减70 dB。我们表明，与同等的可靠性相比，拟议的IoMT平台所需的发射功率大大低于2.4 GHz的RF，例如，距离12 cm时，距离10 GHz的发射功率要少35 dBm。 ⁻³误码率（BER），因此，每位能耗更低，设备寿命更长。最后，我们实验性地建立了2.4 GHz射频链路在大于12 cm的距离处不起作用，而超声波链路在不到0 dBm的发射功率下，在20 cm的距离内实现了10 ^-6 BER的可靠性 。