An energy-efficient pulse position modulation transmitter for galvanic intrabody communications

Intrabody communications (IBC) is a novel communication technique which uses the human body itself as the signal propagation medium. This communication method is categorized as a physical layer of IEEE 802.15.6 or Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) standard. It is significant to investigate the IBC systems to improve the transceiver design characteristics such as data rate and power consumption. In this paper, we propose a new IBC transmitter implementing pulse position modulation (PPM) scheme based on impulse radio. A FPGA is employed to implement the architecture of a carrier-free PPM transmission. Results demonstrate the data rate of 1.56 Mb/s which is suitable for the galvanic coupling IBC method. The PPM transmitter power consumption is 2.0 mW with 3.3 V supply voltage. Having energy efficiency as low as 1.28 nJ/bit provides an enhanced solution for portable biomedical applications based on body area networks.