Integrated neural microsystems and neural interfaces
As electronic systems keep shrinking in size and improving in functionality, more and more applications are now focusing on vital sign monitoring. E.g. heart rate, blood pressure, etc. There is currently a tremendous drive to develop new enabling technologies for neuroscience. This will pave the way to a new breed of neural interfaces and prosthetic devices that will restore natural function. The underlying, ultimate motivation is however to improve the quality of life of individuals with neural damage and dysfunction.
To make a successful neural interface requires collaboration between the biosciences and engineering. My key objectives are predominantly engineering focused: to make devices more compact (particularly for implantables, wearables), versatile and energy efficient (battery lifetime, improving biocompatibility due to dissipation), The main projects I am involved aim to: (1) build a scalable miniature system that is capable of real-time FPGA based spike sorting thus reducing data-rate reduction for wireless communication and other real-time applications; (2) record at least 1k channels of neural signals. My role in these projects is designing the scalable system arch/mechanical and back-end data acquisition module and software. The prototype has been successfully verified in-vivo and a lighter and more versatile version has been in fabrication. The system has been demoed BioCAS 2015.
Read more: iProbe Project, Scalable Neural Recording Interface with Realtime Spike Sorting