Low Power, Non Invasive UWB Systems for WBAN and Biomedical Applications

Woogeun Rhee, Ni Xu, Bo Zhou, and Zhihua Wang Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Abstract-Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology has received great attention in recent short-range communication systems and been considered one of the potential candidates for upcoming IEEE 802.15.6 body area network (BAN) standard. High penetration capability and high precision ranging with a wide bandwidth of up to 7.5GHz (from 3.1GHz to 10.6GHz) make it easy to image the organs of human body for biomedical applications. In addition, low electromagnetic radiation less than 41.3dBm/MHz is safe for human tissue exposure and makes it suitable for hospital and home applications. This paper reviews the state-ofthe-art UWB systems and addresses IC design challenges for WBAN and biomedical applications. Keywords-WBAN; biomedical; RF; wireless; ultra-wideband; IR-UWB; FM-UWB; UWB radar; integrated circuits

I.

INTRODUCTION
Fig. 1. WBAN applications.

With the rapid development of wireless communication technologies, the market for healthcare monitoring systems with wireless body area network (WBAN) is one of the fastest growing sectors [1]-[4]. By 2012, it is expected that about 15 million wireless health-monitoring devices are to be used in USA and that mobile health market is projected to be nearly $9.6 billion [4]. It has been shown that patient remote monitoring with data sent over the Internet to health providers could improve disease management. With the prompt transfer of patient information to the medical experts through wireless networks, efficient medical treatment along with substantial cost saving is expected. Besides, most medical testing equipments are connected to the network based on the RS-232 port interfaces, and wiring cost can be significantly increased with different kinds of medical devices. Offering more complicated function than ever, the smart phone today is considered a good vehicle to serve as a gateway to the main network from commonly used portable devices, wearable medical sensors, computers, and so on, as depicted in Fig. 1. For this kind of phone-embedded shortrange communications, continuous and reliable end-to-end service is critical. For example, low power RF transceiver IC design with long battery time is important for continuous communications between the mobile phone and the wearable

medical sensor. Moreover, the continuous monitoring should not be halted due to interference signals such as incoming mobile phone signals or WiFi signals. Therefore, low power operation and interference immunity are important factors in WBAN physical layer (PHY) design. While the low power, highly reliable short-range communication system is in high demand, a high resolution biomedical sensor system is another challenging part for upcoming demand. With advanced wireless technology, many researches are actively going on to collect the physiological information without contacting the human body directly. By integrating this function into mobile devices such as smart phones and incorporating with health care services, a real-time health monitoring system can be done remotely. Key technical challenges in IC design lie in achieving <1cm sensing resolution with >1m operation distance. In this paper, we consider ultra-wideband (UWB) technology as promising one to realize those goals and review the state-of-the-art UWB systems. The paper is organized as follows: Section II presents the WBAN trend and the need of UWB technology. Section III

This work was partly supported by the Global Research Outreach (GRO) Program of the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), Korea.

978-1-4244-9807-9/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

35

ICTC 2010

Fig. 2. Comparison between WBAN and existing wireless standards.

Fig. 3. UWB spectrum with other wireless standards.

gives a general overview of the UWB technology and presents various transceiver systems. In Section IV, a UWB radar system for medical imaging is introduced and technical challenges are discussed. II. WIRELESS STANDARD FOR BODY AREA NETWORK

control (MAC), which is similar to the ones used in lowpower narrowband, but not necessarily robust, radios [3]. The UWB technology has received great attention in recent short-range communication systems and been considered one of the potential candidates for IEEE 802.15.6 [1]-[3]. By definition [2], the 10 dB RF bandwidth of a UWB signal should be at least 20% of the center frequency fc when fc is less than 2.5 GHz and at least 500 MHz when fc is greater than 2.5 GHz. Since the definition of a UWB signal does not specify a particular air interface or modulation scheme, many different techniques may be used to generate a UWB signal. UWB communications technology was originally intended to provide robust, easy-to-implement, low-cost, and low-power consumption solutions. In particular, high penetration capability and high precision ranging with a wide bandwidth of up to 7.5GHz (from 3.1GHz to 10.6GHz) make it easy to image the organs of human body for medical applications. Low electromagnetic radiation less than 41.3dBm/MHz is safe for human tissue exposure and makes it suitable for hospital and home applications. Fig. 3 illustrates that the UWB has much less radiated power than any other wireless standard and that such a broad bandwidth makes the system immune to interference signals, resulting in easy coexistence with other wireless standards. According to Shannons Channel Capacity, the channel capacity is given by

Existing wireless standards have difficulty in meeting low power and low complexity requirements for short-range communication systems. As shown in Fig. 2, the required power consumption for low data rate (LDR) WBAN devices is much lower than that of any existing standard including ZigBee systems. Typical transmission energy efficiency of the WBAN system is 10n Joule per bit (J/bit) while the ZigBee system easily exceeds 100nJ/bit. Depending on the transceiver architecture and data rate, the energy efficiency less than 1nJ/bit can be achieved. In addition to ultra-low power, many applications occupy similar frequency band of 2.4-2.5GHz, facing RF interference problems and making it difficult to have reliable transceiver performance. For the WBAN and biomedical applications, following features are demanded or considered desirable: Low power with high energy efficiency; Coexistence with other wireless standards; Robust to multi-path interference; Low radiated RF power (less harmful to human body); High penetration capability; Can provide high resolution sensing network. The IEEE 802.15 Task Group 6 is currently developing a communication standard for body area network (BAN) applications which is a short range, low power and highly reliable wireless communication for use in close proximity to, or inside, a human body [1]-[3]. The LDR radio for such applications needs to be low complexity and yet robust to interference and frequency-selective multi-path and also be able to rapidly join or leave a network. The short PHY synchronization time simplifies the task of the medium access

C = B log 2 (1 + Psig / Pn ) ,
where C is a channel capacity, B is a channel bandwidth, Psig is a signal power, and Pn is a noise power. When the channel bandwidth is very wide, a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is not necessary and the channel capacity can be approximated by C B Psig / Pn . Consequently, by having a wide bandwidth, a lower transmitted power is possible for a certain data rate, which is

36

Fig. 4. FCC spectral mask for indoor applications.

desirable for WBAN applications. In next section, recent researches on low complexity UWB systems for short-range communications are reviewed with technical discussion. III. UWB TECHNOLOGY FOR WBAN

(a)

Fig. 4 shows the UWB noise mask set by the Federal Communication Committee (FCC) for indoor applications [5]. Since specific modulation scheme is not fixed for UWB technology, various system solutions with different modulation methods are available. For short range and low cost UWB systems, we consider two UWB techniques; impulse radio UWB (IR-UWB) and frequency modulated UWB (FM-UWB). The multi-band OFDM (MB-OFDM) UWB system achieves high data rate but suffers from complex architecture and high power consumption with large number of carrier frequencies and frequency hopping scheme. Hence, the MB-OFDM UWB system is not considered for WBAN applications in this paper. A. IR-UWB The IR-UWB system transmits a train of short-duration pulses through an antenna as shown in Fig. 5 [6]-[14].A narrow pulse such as the second derivative of the Gaussian pulse is generated by a pulse generator. Then, the generated pulse is reshaped to fit the FCC spectral mask before transmitting it through antenna. The other way is to directly generate a precise UWB pulse whose frequency spectrum satisfies the FCC regulation, which makes it easier to design digital based transmitter systems [6]. In the IR-UWB transmitter, the power amplifier is not needed and a CMOS output buffer can drive the antenna directly. Therefore, significant power saving can be achieved compared to other wireless transmission systems. Therefore, the IR-UWB technique facilitates carrierless transmission and greatly reduces the system complexity. Typically, pulse-position modulation (PPM) or binary phase shift keying (BPSK) is employed as a simple modulation method. Another important feature of the IR-UWB system is that the intermittent transmission with short-duration pulses enables dynamic

(b) Fig. 5. IR-UWB [6]: (a) pulse waveform and (b) transmitter system.

power control for significant power reduction [7]. For low data rate, the short-duration pulses are not sent for a long time. Hence, the transceiver device can be turned off for most time and activated only when the pulses are sent. With such a low duty-cycled operation, power consumption less than 1mW is reported for the transmitter system [8]. However, with such a low duty cycle of the pulsed wavelet sequence, synchronization between the transmitter and the receiver becomes very challenging. Accordingly, having the active receiver window aligned with the short-duration pulses requires a considerable amount of baseband processing, resulting in increased hardware complexity and power consumption. For example, the power consumption of the transmitter in the IR-UWB system is typically less than 5mW, but the receiver consumes power as high as 100mW due to complicated synchronization processing with the shortduration pulses. The non-coherent, self-correlating receiver is an attractive option, as it simplifies the pulse-template synchronization [9]. Unfortunately, bit-error rate will increase

37

(a)

(a)

(b) Fig. 7. FM-UWB [15]: (a) pulse waveform and (b) transmitter system.

(b) Fig. 6. IR-UWB with Sync-OOK modulation [14]: (a) pulse detection principle and (b) digital synchronization circuit.

as the receiver will not be able to discriminate between noise and transmitted data. In addition, the design of a clock-anddata recovery loop is still required, as the demodulated data needs to be phase locked with the local receiver clock. Different techniques including an injection locking method have been reported to simplify phase synchronization in the receiver [13]. Below is the summary of the IR-UWB system features: Low duty cycle enables ultra low power system design; Simple transmitter architecture without power amplifier; Robust to multi-path fading; No need of carrier modulation; Pulse synchronization is very challenging. B. IR-UWB with Synched-OOK Modulation As discussed previously, the UWB receivers need to synchronize to the incoming signal and, as a result, often require 10x or more energy per bit than transmitters [8]. From a systems perspective, OOK modulation formats that operate with more than one pulse per bit, can thus be advantageous if they simplify the receiver and reduce its power consumption. A Synched-OOK (S-OOK) modulation format is proposed to greatly simplify the UWB receiver architecture [14]. As shown in Fig. 6(a), a 1 is represented as a leading sync pulse

followed by a data pulse and a 0 as only a leading sync pulse. Accordingly, synchronization to the incoming pulse is not needed and detecting the signal energy is enough to demodulate the low data rate signal. Fig. 6(b) shows a S-OOK synchronization implementation example with static-CMOS synchronous logic clocked by an on-chip ring oscillator. As seen, synchronization does not rely on precise oscillators, which is another advantage of the S-OOK method. However, just detecting the signal energy lose some features of the UWB signal. For example, the S-OOK based UWB system cannot be used for high-resolution sensing network or radar applications. Nonetheless, the S-OOK based UWB system is promising for ultra-low power short-range LDR communication systems. C. FM-UWB Different from the IR-UWB system, the FM-UWB system generates a constant-envelope UWB signal with wideband FM modulation, featuring a very steep spectral roll off [15]-[20]. Since the FM-UWB receiver can perform FM demodulation without a local oscillator, carrier synchronization is not needed as in the case of the IR-UWB. As a result, overall system design can be simple and robust. The FM-UWB can be seen as an analog implementation of a spread-spectrum system with a spreading gain equal to the modulation index , offering a low complexity constant envelope UWB signal [15]. Low modulation index FSK is followed by high modulation index analog FM, creating a constant-envelope UWB signal. Fig. 7 shows a typical block diagram of the FM-UWB transceiver. The transmitter consists

38

Fig. 9. Contact-less heart monitoring system with UWB technology. Fig. 8. Continuous wave radar [20]: (a) frequency modulation and (b) beat frequency.

of a 1-2 MHz sub-carrier oscillator generating a triangular signal that is FSK modulated by the transmit data. This subcarrier signal modulates the RF VCO, yielding a constantenvelope UWB signal with a flat power spectral density and steep spectral roll-off. Phase noise requirements for the transmitter VCO are relaxed (typically 80 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset) and constant-envelope RF signal allows for a low supply voltage in the transmitter [15]. The receiver demodulates the FM-UWB signal without requiring local oscillator and carrier synchronization which makes the system simpler and cheaper. The disadvantage of the FM-UWB system is that the RF oscillator needs to be active all the time. Consequently, low power system with dynamic power control is difficult. Also, data rate higher than 1Mbp/s is difficult due to the limited subcarrier frequency. Below is the summary of the FM-UWB system features: No local oscillator in the receiver; No carrier synchronization in the receiver; Antenna is not critical; Relaxed hardware specifications; Steep spectral roll-off; Dynamic power control is difficult; >1Mbps data rate is difficult due to sub-carrier frequency. IV. UWB RADAR FOR MEDICAL IMAGING+

With the UWB dielectric properties, the organic motionrelated signal is obtained from a UWB radar device aimed at the human body. Especially for heart as a cardiovascular monitor, the UWB radar could detect cardiac contractions, arterial wall motion and a breath monitor to detect respiratory movements. Because the UWB electromagnetic signal is not influenced by clothes or blankets, and the useful range is in the order of a few meters, the use of the UWB radar in cardiac motion evaluation is a wonderful complement to the electrocardiogram [20]. Having the simple transceiver architecture, the FM-UWB system is considered a good candidate to realize UWB radar. As shown in Fig. 8, the frequency of the transmitted electromagnetic wave changes as a known time function [20], and the range R is given by

R=

cf r , 4Ff m

where fr is the difference between the received and the transmitted frequency, fm is the modulation rate, F is the modulation range, and c is the speed of light. To achieve finer sensing resolution, multiple-frequency continuous wave radar with the FM-UWB technique is proposed [20]. For the radar cross section of the heart of 0.0012mm2, the maximum range with the 4.5GHz FM-UWB technique is given by

c2 P 1 4 t 2 , R= 3 64 S min f L
where Pt is transmit output power, Smin is receiver sensitivity, and L is the total round trip loss. It is reported that the maximum range of 10cm is feasible which is greater than the average distance between the center of the heart and the skin (4cm) [20]. To integrate the real-time contact-less healthcare service into the smart phone, the maximum range longer than 1m is

In early 1970s people had tried to monitor apnoea with the help of radar to make it contact-less. In 1976 and 1980 researches had tried to sense the respiratory motion of fatal through radar [21]. Development of this radar technology has stopped because of the high power radiation concern for human safety, bulkiness of the apparatus and high cost. First attempt of using UWB radar in medical applications is in human body monitoring and imaging in 1993 [22].

+ This section is described mostly based on [20]. Different ways of medical imaging are available.

39

preferred. Another challenging part is to develop a good modeling of heart movement during breathing. A proper algorithm and signal processing are needed to detect the organic movement during breathing condition. Therefore, a true contact-less health monitoring system with the mobile devices such as smart phones needs more innovation in integration of sensing and biomedical technologies. Fig. 9 shows an example of realizing a contact-less heart monitoring system which is feasible based on current UWB technology. Even though the heart movement is monitored with the fixed medical equipment with a very short distance, it provides a practical way of contact-less monitoring system where patients do not have to take off their clothes. For high resolution sensing, multiple FM-UWB radars may be employed. For data transmission from the sensing device to the monitoring equipment, the low power simple S-OOK based IR-UWB transceiver is considered. By utilizing different UWB technologies for sensing and transmission, crosstalk between two transceivers is minimized. Therefore, non invasive health monitoring with low radiated power and robust communication can be achieved as a near-term contactless body monitoring solution. V. CONCLUSION

[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]

[15]

[16]

[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

Some key requirements of the WBAN systems are reviewed. Featuring low cost and low power implementation with good immunity to interference signals, the UWB technique is considered a strong candidate for the upcoming IEEE 802.15.6 BAN standard. Also, wide bandwidth with low radiated power is very desirable for non-invasive medical imaging applications. To have the real-monitoring healthcare system come true, active researches on integration of sensor and low-power transceiver IC designs and communication technology are demanded. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] IEEE 802.15 WPAN Task Group 6 Body Area Networks (BAN), website URL: http://www.ieee802.org/15/pub/TG6.html. L. Yang, G. B. Giannaki, Ultra wideband communicationan idea whose time has come, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, pp. 26-54, Nov. 2004. FM-UWB website URL: http://www.fmuwb.org/. Going Wireless with your health care, Market Watch web site URL: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/going-wireless-with-your-healthcare-2010-03-02?siteid=YAHOOB. First Report and Order in The Matter of Revision of Part 15 of the Commissions Rules Regarding Ultra wideband Transmission Systems, ET-Docket, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 02-48, pp. 98153, April 2002. T. Norimatsu et al., A UWB-IR transmitter with digitally controlled pulse generator, IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, vol. 42, pp. 13001309, June 2007. T. Terada, et al., Intermittent operation control scheme for reducing power consumption of UWB-IR receiver, IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, vol. 44, pp. 27022710, Oct. 2009. D. Lacharte et al., A 1.1nJ/bit 802.15.4a-compliant fully integrated UWB transceiver in 0.13m CMOS, in ISSCC Dig. Tech. Papers, Feb. 2009, pp. 312-313.

F. Lee and A. Chandrakasan, A 2.5 nJ/bit 0.65 V pulsed UWB receiver in 90nm CMOS, IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, pp. 2851-2859, vol. 42, Dec. 2007. J. Ryckaert et al., A 0.65-to-1.4 nJ/burst 3-to-10 GHz UWB digital TX in 90 nm CMOS for IEEE802.15.4a, in IEEE ISSCC Dig. Tech. Papers, Feb. 2007, pp. 120121. D. Wentzloff and A. Chandrakasan, A 47 pJ/pulse 3.1-to-5 GHz alldigital UWB transmitter in 90 nm CMOS, in IEEE ISSCC Dig. Tech. Papers, Feb. 2007, pp. 118119. M. Demirkan and R. Spencer, A pulse-based ultra-wideband transmitter in 90-nm CMOS for WPANs, IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, pp. 2820-2859, vol. 43, Dec. 2008. C. Hu et al., A 90-nm CMOS, 500Mbps, fully-integrated IR-UWB transceiver using pulse-injection locking for receiver phase synchronization, in IEEE RFIC Proc., Jan. 2010, pp. 201-204. M. Crepaldi, C. Li, K. Dronson, J. Fernandes, P. Kinget, An ultra-lowpower interference-robust IR-UWB transceiver chipset using selfsynchronizing OOK modulation, in ISSCC Dig. Tech. Papers, Feb. 2010, pp. 226-227. J. Gerrits, M. Kouwenhoven, P. van der Meer, J. Farserotu, and J. Long, "Principles and limitations of ultra-wideband FM communications systems," EURASIP J. of App. Signal Processing, vol. 2005, pp. 382396, Mar. 2005. J. R. Long, W. Wu, Y. Dong, Y. Zhao, M. A. T. Sanduleanu, J. F. M.Gerrits, and G. van Veenendaal, "Energy-efficient wireless front-end concepts for ultra lower power radio," in Proc. IEEE CICC, pp. 587590 Sept. 2008. J. F. M. Gerrits, J. R. Farserotu and J. R. Long, "Low-Complexity Ultra Wideband Communications", IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems-II, vol. 55, pp. 329 - 333, Apr. 2008. Y. Zhao, Y. Dong, J. Gerrits, G. v. Veenendaal, J. Long, and J. Farserotu, A short range, low data rate, 7.2-7.7 GHz FM-UWB receiver frontend, IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, vol. 44, pp. 1872-1882, July 2009. B. Zhou, et al., A low data rate FM-UWB transmitter with based sub-carrier modulation and quasi-continuous frequency-locked loop, to appear in Proc. IEEE A-SSCC, Nov. 2010. E. Cianca and B. Gupta, FM-UWB for Communications and Radar in Medical Applications, Wireless Personal Communications, Springer, vol. 51, Dec. 2009, pp. 793-809. E. M. Staderini, UWB radar in medicine, IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, 17(1), Jan. 2002. T. E. McEwan, Body monitoring and imaging apparatus and method, US Patent 5,573,012, Nov. 1996.

[6] [7] [8]

40