Towards an Untethered Ultrasound Beamforming System for Brain Stimulation in Behaving Animals

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

10-26-2018

Abstract

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.

Identifier

85056669984 (Scopus)

ISBN

[9781538636466]

Publication Title

Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society EMBS

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1109/EMBC.2018.8512551

ISSN

1557170X

PubMed ID

30440697

First Page

1596

Last Page

1599

Volume

2018-July

Grant

ECCS-1542015

Fund Ref

National Science Foundation

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