A 6.25 Mbps, 12.4 pJ/bit DQPSK Backscatter Wireless Uplink for the NeuroDisc Brain-Computer Interface

Abstract

Wireless brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) used for fundamental neuroscience research in freely moving non-human primates (NHPs) require communication systems capable of transferring large volumes of recorded neural data while consuming minimal power. We introduce a 6.25 Mbps differential quadrature phase-shift keying (DQPSK) backscatter wireless uplink for the NeuroDisc BCI, operating in the 902-928 MHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM)-band. The backscatter uplink consumes 77.5 uW (only 0.06% of the system power budget), yielding a communication energy efficiency of 12.4 pJ/bit, while the measured error vector magnitude of the DQPSK constellation is 9.69%. The neural recording front-end has a measured input-referred noise of 2.35 uVrms at a maximum sampling rate of 20 kSps. We present end-to-end recording and wireless uplink validation with pre-recorded neural data as well as in vivo recordings from a pigtail macaque.