Aaron Lehmann: Wireless Transmission System for Brain Controlled Lower Limb Prosthesis

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is a technique for restoring muscle control to people affected by spinal cord injuries. Promising research is going into pairing FES with a brain-machine interface. This would allow patients to mentally control the contraction of their muscles. Such a system would require gathering data from neurons in the brain and relaying it to a computer which would process it and control the electrical stimulation. A wireless network is the best way to do this because it reduces the inconvenience of the system.

This project is a prototype of the communications system. It transmits 100 channels digitally for a total of 24Mbps. Most channels represent neurons simulated by Duke University's NEURON software, and one channel carries a digitized electrocardiogram signal to demonstrate real-time capabilities. These data channels are multiplexed and transmitted over an 802.11g wireless link by a low-power single-board computer running the Linux OS.