Impulse Radio Address Event Interconnects for body area networks and neural prostheses

Impulse or ultra wideband (UWB) radio is a wireless communications method, providing high bandwidth for short range communication. Address event representation (AER) is a communications protocol for conveying information in terms of events and is widely used in neuromorphic systems. Combining the two techniques, we present a method for wirelessly sending AER events between neuromorphic systems. The resulting wireless protocol includes an AER event interface, asynchronous handshaking, PRN coding, and UWB transmission. The first three functions are implemented in digital logic and the last, the physical transmission is accomplished using UWB radio components. The asynchronous handshaking and PRN coding provide two layers of robustness for operating the protocol in noisy conditions. An analysis of the capacity of a network of UWB AER nodes, which demonstrates its ability to support several thousand neurons across multiple transmitters, even at relatively high sustained firing rates, suitable for body area networks (BANs) and wireless networked neural protheses.

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