A MULTICHANNEL WIDE-BAND BIOTELEMETRY SYSTEM

UNDER THIS PROPOSED EFFORT, THE FEASIBILITY OF A MULTICHANNEL FM TELEMETRY SYSTEM CAPABLE OF TELEMETERING WIDE-BAND PHYSIOLOGICAL DATA WILL BE STUDIED AND ALTERNATE DESIGNS WILL BE EVALUATED VIA THE CONSTRUCTIUON OF PROTOTYPES. THE SYSTEM WILL INCLUDE A TRANSMITTER CAPABLE OF TELEMETERING SIGNALS FROM COMMONLY USED ELECTRODES AS THE MAJOR FOCUS ON THIS EFFORT, WHILE INTEGRATING COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE COMPONENTS SUCH AS RF RECEIVERS AND OUR DATAQUEST DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM TO PROVIDE A DESIGN THAT CAN BE MANUFACTURED AT A REASONABLE COST. THE PROPOSED SYSTEM WILL OFFER THE ABILITY TO TELEMETER FOUR CHANNELS OF ANALOG DATA WITH A CORRESPONDING BANDWIDTH, SIZE, RANGE, AND LIFETIME THAT WOULD MAKE THE SYSTEM USEFUL FOR AUTOMATICALLY TELEMETERING AND COLLECTING SINGLE-CELL ACTION POTENTIALS FROM ADULT RATS. AS AN ANCILLARY GOAL, THE SYSTEM WILL BE DESIGNED SO THAT MULTIPLE TRANSMITTING MODULES CAN BE USED TOGETHER TO TELEMETER A LARGE NUMBER OF DATA CHANNELS. SUCH A SYSTEM WITH MULTICHANNEL CAPACITY WILL BE WELL SUITED FOR TELEMETERING SINGLE-CELL POTENTIALS, EMG'S, AND EEG'S FROM BOTH SMALL ANIMALS AND HUMAN BEINGS. THE DEVICE WILL ALSO HAVE INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS IN SITUATIONS WHERE IT IS IMPORTANT TO TELEMETER A NUMBER OF VARIABLES OVER A SHORT DISTANCE (E.G., FROM A MOVING APPARATUS THAT CANNOT BE MONITORED USING WIRES). ALTHOUGH NO SPECIAL EQUIPMENT IS COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE AT PRESENT, OUR TELEMETRY EXPERIENCE AND A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION SUGGEST THAT RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN BOTH INTEGRATED CIRCUIT AND BATTERY TECHNOLOGY MAY NOW MAKE FEASIBLE A COST-EFFECTIVE DEVICE CONSISTENT WITH THESE DESIGN GOALS.