An adaptive dual-mode HBC transceiver for medical and entertainment applications

Abstract

Human body communication (HBC) is a low-power communication method using the human body as a medium for wearable and implantable devices. Existing systems support either Carrier-Based HBC (CB-HBC) with carrier modulation for noise immunity or Carrierless HBC (CL-HBC) with carrierfree signaling for simplicity and higher data rates, leading to separate transceiver (TRX) designs and limited flexibility. This work presents a unified TRX in TSMC 65 nm silicon supporting both modes with real-time adaptability. Key features include: (1) a reconfigurable transmitter (TX) switching between CB-HBC across 4 carrier frequencies (up to 21 MHz) and CL-HBC, (2) an adaptive receiver (RX) with 4 digitally controlled bias levels for mode-specific gain-bandwidth tuning, and (3) programmable data rates up to 2 Mbps in CB-HBC, and 5.25 Mbps in CL-HBC. Measurement results show an energy efficiency of 25pJ/bit (CB-HBC) and 8.4pJ/ bit (CL-HBC), power consumption of 50μW and 44μW respectively, bit error rate (BER) <10−4 at a carrier-to-data rate ratio <14 for CB-HBC, and sensitivity of −91 dBm in a 0.12mm2 area.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Abdulkadir Celik: orcid.org/0000-0001-9007-9979

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