A 2.4GHz ULP OOK single-chip transceiver for healthcare applications

Wireless body-area networks (WBAN) are used for communication among sensor nodes operating on, in or around the human body, e.g. for healthcare purposes. In view of energy autonomy, the total energy consumption of the sensor nodes should be minimized. Because of their low complexity, a combination of the super-regenerative (SR) principle [1-3] and OOK modulation enables ultra low power (ULP) consumption. This work presents a 2.4GHz ULP OOK single chip transceiver for WBAN applications. A block diagram of the implemented transceiver is shown in Fig. 26.3.1. Next to the direct modulation TX [4] and SR RF [5] front-ends, this work integrates analog and digital baseband, PLL functionality and additional programmability for flexible data rates, and achieves ultra-low power consumption for the overall system.