Bernhard Boser (Advisor)

Chronic monitoring of nerve activity with minimally invasive medical devices creates broad opportunities from therapeutic treatments to human augmentation. These closed-looped neural recording and modulation systems require small, low power wearable devices to enable freely moving subjects while still allowing real- time processing of recorded data. An ultrasonic backscatter system called Neural Dust (ND) demonstrated ultrasound's increased power efficiency over electromagnetic (EM) energy for sub-mm scale implantable devices used for wireless electrophysiological neural recording....

Advancements in minimally-invasive, distributed biological interface nodes enable possibilities for networks of sensors and actuators to connect the brain with external devices. These brain machine interfacing systems require addressing three critical areas for real world use: signal-acquisition hardware, real-time operation, and long term validation. The recent development of the neural dust sensor mote has shown that utilizing ultrasound backscatter communication enables untethered ...

With the advantages of small size and low cost, MEMS gyroscopes have been used in a variety of applications such as image stabilization, gaming control, and motion tracking for mobile or wearable devices. One potential application for MEMS gyroscopes is indoor navigation. This minimizes the infrastructure requirements compared with other approaches with electromagnetic reference beacons. However, recent consumer MEMS gyroscopes are still orders away from achieving navigation grade performance.

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The first goal of this research is to investigate the issues involved in the design of a sigma-delta force- balance surface-micromachined accelerometer. The second goal is to successfully design, fabricate, and test a monolithic m...