Design of piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer (PMUT) arrays for intrabody networking applications

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20253862

The present work details the design process for Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer (PMUT) arrays for wireless intrabody networking applications. Transducers operating at 0.7 and 2MHz are designed for creating a communication link in the body medium interfacing with Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based circuitry and transmission protocols developed in previous work. After definition of the transducer geometry, design constraints such as dimensions, source power, directivity, transmission distance, and bandwidth are addressed for allowing the transducers to operate within miniaturized implantable devices. A matrix model is obtained for the transducer and, along with a medium transmission model, a system-wide representation is obtained allowing simulation of the transmitter, medium and receiver arrangement with varying parameters. An equivalent circuit model is also developed for prediction of performance parameters. The necessary quantities for these models are extracted from Finite Element Modeling (FEM) simulation. A micro fabrication process is also developed for the designed topology and progress in its implementation is shown.