Wireless Data Links for Biomedical Implants: Current Research and Future Directions

This paper outlines the requirements for high-rate implantable data links as would be used in applications such as visual prostheses. Methods used in current research are categorized and recently reported implementations are discussed and compared. The most significant shortcoming of current implementations is in their data rates which are limited to several Mb/s, while rates of several tens of Mb/s are envisioned to be necessary for a functional visual prosthesis. Several promising methods for achieving increased data rates are discussed, including ultra-wide band signaling, infrared transmission, and body conduction techniques.