An Integrated Optical Transceiver Circuit for Power Delivery and Bi-directional Data Communication in a Medical Catheter Device

In this paper*, the realization of an optical transceiver circuit (OTC) integrated into a customized catheter system is presented. The electronics at the distal end of the catheter is located far away from the external bed-side unit and is connected by an optical link to control its functions. By means of light only, the optical link simultaneously delivers power and establishes a bi-directional data communication. The optical link consists of just a few components, i.e. a multi-mode fiber, a blue LED, an external unit and the optical transceiver circuit. The LED is located at the catheter tip and is used by the OTC to operate as an optical transceiver and energy harvester. Several circuit blocks are integrated into the OTC, to provide a regulated voltage of 1.8 V at a maximum current of 2.1 mA. The OTC establishes a communication with a speed of up to 15.6 kBits/s for receiving and 1.35 MBits/s for transmitting data. Because of the small area and only less components to set up the link at the sensor side, the optical link is very suitable for application to the catheter system presented in this paper. The concept can also be applied to other biomedical or industrial sensor systems, where conventional approaches, using electrical wiring, are unpractical.