Technologies of the future: Implanted Smartphones and Hi-Tech Brains

5 minutes read

As digital electronic devices like smartphones and watches transform into their implanted versions, monitoring biological data will become more accurate and allow features that will transform our lives. Clubbing these technologies with augmented reality will transform the way we use our smartphones, for instance. It will no longer be a handheld device but embedded in our bodies. For example, to make a video call to someone, instead of picking up the smartphone and dialling a number, we would need to think of the person, and an implanted sensor in our brain would read the information. The video of the person would then appear using augmented reality.

6G would promise higher resolution and multi-sensory tasks for Augmented Reality. For example, zero energy devices would be positively realizable in 6G.

The future of Implanted devices using 6G

An implanted device is a human-made device that can support or replace a biological structure or enhance the functionality of a body organ. It can be a valuable tool for medical practitioners to provide effective treatment and customized diagnoses. It can be used for health monitoring by using a probe in our bodies to collect relevant data like the amount of sodium, glucose, and other ions. It can also be used for controlled drug delivery to a specific part of our bodies.

Implanted devices would require interaction with an outside device, possibly for analysis. This would make the human body a communication environment. The interaction between in-body and on-body nodes will help recover important information from our body and send it to the cloud. These pieces of information can be used to diagnose a disease or simply monitor a person’s well-being. These devices can also monitor a person’s emotional health and physical health. Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning will be beneficial in analyzing a large amount of data to find correlations among clinical, psychological, lifestyle, and environmental data to prevent and improve individuals’ health status. Implanted devices will also introduce wireless Brain-Computer Interactions (BCI). BCI will allow people to interact using discrete devices. Discrete devices will be made up of parts worn, parts implanted within the body, and parts present in the environment.

Wireless Brain Implants

One of the main applications that will utilize the features of 6G is the wireless Brain-Machine Interface enabled by a mobile network that is designed to support the new type of services. This is called the BTC. We will discuss some use cases for how BTC can be integrated into wireless networks.

Downlink BTC

The downlink transmission links transmit data from the network to the implants. One use can be to help give directions to visually impaired people. The (Extended Reality) XR will be a key technology overlapping with such applications. The user can get immersive navigation with signals coming directly to brain implants and some other sensory implants. The receiving implant must process the data then and there to create the best experience. This would also require high data rates from the network.

Uplink BTC

Uplink BTC will be required for applications where data transmission must be communicated from the implant to other controlling devices/ implants or servers. It is crucial for Brain to Machine Interface (BMI) services in which data needs to be transmitted from the brain to other devices for control purposes. For instance, a multi-brain-controlled cinema requires brain input and wireless cognition in which the brain controls a drone or an autonomous vehicle.

Brain-to-Brain (B2B) Communication

This link is important for services where one implant must communicate with other implants within the same or different environments. This can be seen as the future version of device-to-device communication. B2B communication would be useful in, for instance, immersive gaming in which all players coordinate via direct brain-to-brain communications. It would also be useful in education and teaching.

Barriers to the technology

The physical medium imposes challenges to any wireless system that would support BTC. Due to its structure and function, the transcranial wireless channel presents many challenges to the many wireless technology options. The brain is covered by the skull and surrounding tissue absorbing or scattering high-frequency signals. Lower frequency signals are known to cause head heat to increase. The wireless solutions we design must cope smartly with those unwanted effects. We must also consider that single neurons have high data rate demands for sensing purposes. Here we explore the barriers to wireless technologies working as a communication channel between implants and external devices. 

Spatial-temporal resolution

The number of neurons and other brain cell types goes beyond the billion unit mark. It is considered the biggest challenge in measuring the whole brain information with existing technology and infrastructure. Naive estimates of the whole brain recording lower bound data rate are about 100 Gbits/s, which will be a big challenge for future Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMIs). The implanted technologies must include compression techniques that minimize the transmission burden of single action potentials. The compression technique will have an interesting interplay with the sampling rate of signal recording and the wireless technologies and their equivalent data rates.

Energy dissipation

The propagation of transcranial wireless signals, which are transduced by implantable devices, will result in energy dissipation through the tissue. This energy will be converted to heat, which is also dissipated. Due to the brain’s tightly packed structure, damage can occur due to a minimum temperature increase of above two degrees Celcius. Wireless signals can be easily modulated to operate below the 100% duty cycle of the system’s operation, which can help prevent damaging energy dissipation. The brain also presents natural cooling mechanisms that can help restore the brain’s normal temperature. However, the real challenge lies in the large scale deployment of heavy and dense recording and stimulation techniques for high-spatial resolutions. Unfortunately, more research needs to be done to provide maximum control of energy dissipation.

Volume displacement

The insertion of devices in the Brain can cause its volume to increase, leading to damage to its functioning tissue. A displacement bigger than 1% of the total brain volume is not allowed for implantables. Wireless technologies can help these implantables to remain in tiny sizes, either using high-frequency transmission or low frequencies for applications in the cortex. The underlying issue is that most effects that inhibit the implantable well functioning happen way over its implantation phase, which the most well-known is the Glial scarring. Wireless interfaces can help long-term implantation in this case by allowing these devices to be packaged within biocompatible material that prevents body foreign reaction, such as the above-mentioned. Future techniques such as multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless systems for implantables might help use low-frequency solutions for deep brain interfacing that are essential for integrating existing wireless system platforms to future wireless brain interfaces. 

Future looks interesting yet scary. Right? Think about the time when your kids would insist on getting an implant phone like you wanted a new iPhone when you were a kid. Let us know what you think about these technologies and what you predict about the future. Share your thoughts in the comments below.