WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH GRANT PROPOSAL
Project ID: 2004DC56B
Title: The Development of a MEMS-based Integrated Wireless Remote Biosensors
Project Type: Research
Focus Categories: Water Quality, Non Point Pollution, Toxic Substances
Keywords: Wireless biosensors, pollutants, ecological quality, drinking water security
Start Date: 03/01/2004
End Date: 02/28/2005
Federal Funds: $15,000
Non-Federal Matching Funds: $30,000
Congressional District: Washington DC
Principal Investigator:
Esther T. Ososanya
Abstract
The main theme for this research, education and training proposal is environmental
stress assessment for watershed management, ecological quality, and drinking
water security. Today, more than ever before, maintaining of our Nations water
quality mandates careful and exact assessment that require thorough understanding
of contaminant and stressor characteristics, basic ecological processes and
principles, transport rates and fate of substances within ecosystems, and
health and ecological effects.
Contaminants become a risk to living systems as a result of the dose or concentration
they are exposed to and the duration of exposure. Because a large number of
factors can contribute to this problem in an ecological system, continuously
monitoring for potentially dangerous elements using analytical chemical methods
alone is expensive, time consuming, and is not practical. An innovative approach
to resolving the periodicity of the analytical sampling problem in a cost
effective manner would be to develop a continuously operable, remote, automated
biological system; a coordinated monitoring system incorporating both physical/chemical
and biological methods that could be networked into a coordinated surveillance
plan for risk assessment and ecological quality control.
This research proposes the design and implementation of an integrated wireless,
low-power embedded biosensor monitoring system for the acquisition and transmission
of biological functions from aquatic animals. These signals can be used to
measure the stress induced in aquatic animals due to water pollution. Over
the past decade, research has been active in developing methods pf measuring
the levels of stress in aquatic animals for the purpose of monitoring water
pollution [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The minimization of power consumption is a critical
issue in the design of electronic systems for portable battery-operated applications
or remotely powered applications as employed in biomonitoring systems.
In the proposed study a MEMS-based biosensor will be integrated with a mixed-mode
ASIC chip comprising of preamplifier, band-pass filter, analog amplifier,
D/A module, modulator, transmitter, and a digital controller. The design will
integrate MEMS, wireless communication, VLSI, and system-on-chip (BioSilico)
technologies in the design of a low power environmental monitoring device.
The system will be designed as a battery-powered device. Techniques for analyzing
the acquired data will also be developed. The embedded integrated sensors
are to be used in the on-line acquisition of myoneural signals from aquatic
animals such as bivalve molluscs, blue gill fish, and other fish species.
This design is expected to miniaturize several discrete modules and eliminate
coaxial cables used in existing biomonitoring setups, and in a significant
reduction in the overall system power consumption. A receiver system will
be used to receive the signal transmitted from the sensor device. The receiver
system will be designed and built using off-shelf components. When completed
the design will enable to automate the process of in situ environmental data
gathering needed to monitoring the safety of the drinking water resources.
Details of the design will be made available through conference and journal
papers.
The proposed research is collaboration between the Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science Department and the Environmental Science Department.
Students from Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Environmental
Science will work in a multidisciplinary research environment to design the
biomonitoring system. The project will produce highly qualified graduates
with multidisciplinary research experience.