Wireless, RF & Smart Dust

Research that includes:

  • Tuneable RF components: capacitors, inductors, transformers
  • RF microrelays
  • High frequency MEMS resonators: devices, structures, and processes

NT13: RF Dielectric Fluid Immersed Silicon MEMS Tunable Capacitors

Daniel T. McCormick
Zhihong Li
2004

The objective of this project is to develop micro-electromechanical tunable capacitors employing dielectric fluids. In the case of electrostatic, mechanically tunable capacitors the goal is to increase the capacitance per unit area and the tuning range, reduce the mechanical noise and also improve mechanical performance and long-term reliability.

Project end date: 08/18/04

NT14: A Variable Inductor Array Using Lateral-Contact Microrelays

Ye Wang
Zhihong Li
2003

The objective of this project is to develop a variable inductor array using lateral-contact microrelays to provide a wide tuning range and design flexibility for building blocks using passive RF MEMS components in wireless communication systems.

Project end date: 01/27/04

BPN871: An Ultrasonic Implantable for Continuous In Vivo Monitoring of Tissue Oxygenation

Soner Sonmezoglu
2022

Our group previously demonstrated a “neural dust” system for neural recording which includes an implantable device and external ultrasonic transducers to power and communicate with the implantable. In this work, we extend that paradigm, demonstrating an implantable that can measure and report tissue oxygenation. Oxygenation state is a key parameter when assessing the metabolic state of cells and tissues, tissue and organ viability, tumor state, among many examples in both basic science and clinical care. Various types of methods for the detection of oxygen have appeared in recent...

BPN939: Analysis and Benchmarking of MEMS-Based Super-Regenerative Receivers

Kevin H. Zheng
2022

The recent MEMS-based super-regenerative receiver our group demonstrated used a tunable 65-nm-capacitive-gap transduced wine-glass disk resonator to receive and demodulate OOK signals with only 490uW of power consumption. This work aims to analyze the sensitivity and maximum bit rate for this class of receiver in the presence of adjacent-channel blockers and measure these characteristics for receivers implemented using resonators with sub-40-nm gaps.

Project suspended for Fall 2022

BPN848: Wireless Neural Sensors: Robust Ultrasonic Backscatter Communication in the Brain

David Piech
2021

Brain-machine interfaces provide an artificial conduit to send information to and from the brain, and modulate activity in the brain. These systems have shown great promise in clinical, scientific, and human-computer interaction contexts, but the low reward/risk ratio of today’s invasive neural interfaces has limited their use to an extremely niche clinical patient population. It has been shown that ultrasonic backscatter communication can enable the sensing and stimulation of neural activity with extremely small wireless implants, which can both improve performance and reduce risk....

BSAC's Best: Fall 2020 Oral Presentation Winners Announced

September 24, 2020

BSAC would like to thank all of the researchers who presented their research during BSAC's Fall 2020 Research Review, September 21-23.

BSAC Industrial Members voted for their favorite oral presentations and the results are in. Please join us in congratulating the winners of the Fall 2020 Best of BSAC honors, Mallika Bariya and Daniel Teal!

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BPN866: Wide-Bandwidth UHF Bandpass Filters

Kieran Peleaux
QianYi Xie
2021

This project aims to explore the physical limitation of Capacitive- Piezoelectric resonator and Capacitively-transduced resonator for the realization of wide-bandwidth bandpass filters at UHF and oscillators.

BPN814: UHF Capacitive-Gap Transduced Resonators With High Cx/Co

Kieran Peleaux
2021

The project explores methods by which the Cx/Co of UHF capacitive- gap transduced resonators might be increased to above 5% while maintaining Qs 10,000.

BPN795: An Implantable Microsensor for Cancer Surveillance

Kyoungtae Lee
2021

We aim to create an implantable dosimeter for the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory’s proton beam therapy treatment. Currently, there is no closed loop solution to verify the dose treated to a specific in vivo location. By using ultrasound as a communication platform, we aim to enable real time in vivo dose readings to physicians. This can lead to better-localized irradiation treatment of cancer, and minimize irradiation to vital, healthy tissues. This technology could also be calibrated for specific military applications.

Project ended: 05/01/2021

BPN902: Jumping Microrobots for Low-Cost Asteroid Prospecting

Daniel Teal
2021

We are exploring potential applications of our jumping microrobots in space. While our 1.9x1.2x0.06cm robot has previously jumped 3mm (and can theoretically achieve 3cm or much more) in Earth gravity, the same actuator would reach escape velocity in the 6 micro-g gravity of the Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) Bennu, the target of NASAs current OSIRIS-REx sample return mission. This implies it is possible to build a thousand-robot swarm of 1cm^3 1g robot capable of hopping around and measuring an NEA. This is useful because such a swarm is simultaneously lighter (by orders of magnitude) and more...