Ultra-low power UWB for real time biomedical wireless sensing

ISFET, MEMS and advances in semiconductor technology have enabled the realization of powerful miniature devices for physiological signal monitoring. Sensors are becoming very small with amazingly low power consumption. They can measure a wide range of physiological signal, e.g. ECG, EEG, blood glucose level, blood oxygen level, etc. The integration of those devices, low power signal processing and ultra low power (ULP) wireless telemetry creates the synergy that has never been explored. Prolong real time physiological signal monitoring can be achieved more easily and economically. Conventional ULP wireless telemetry systems are approaching their lower bound on power consumption. Ultra Wideband (UWB) communication system can probably break the limit because of its simple architecture and carrier-free characteristic. The power consumption and chip size per unit of data rate can be made very low. More room for tradeoffs in the system is allowed. © 2005 IEEE.