[ Organization | Stimulator Technology | Intra-cortical Electrodes 

Implant Package Design | Implant Electronic Design | Computer Interface ]

All data, in or out, of a cortical implant flows over a serial link. For an implanted stimulator, stimulus commands originate from a pattern generator that modulates the extra-corporeal transmitter. Generating the required bit stream, at the required data rate, is non-trivial. In particular, there is a conflict between the speed of the generator and the level of the user interface for defining the patterns.

We have investigated the use of Visual Basic & C++ and PC-based digital I/O cards to perform this function. Although a microcontroller could serve this function by being configured to produce a repetitive bit stream, we want to interface the Visual Prosthesis directly to a higher-level graphical-user-interface (GUI); During the initial use of cortical implants, stimulus generation and neural-signal interpretation will be undefined, and highly-flexible methods of interface control are required. In Figure 13, below, we show a graphical user interface (GUI) for controlling the Visual Prosthesis. A Nudaq 7300-B PCI DAQ card was used for digital I/O

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