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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 31 March 2010 and numbered DIA-08-1003-020, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under its Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. It surveys biosensors and biomedical microelectromechanical systems, covering brain-implanted micromachine neuroelectrodes, drug-delivery pumps, glucose sensors, neural interfaces, retinal prostheses, microfluidic lab chips, NASA cell-culture systems and microcantilever sensors. It concludes that the field is expanding rapidly, with nanomechanical systems expected to follow.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/31/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD surveys biosensors and BioMEMS, a broad class of miniature biomedical devices that combine microscale engineering with sensing, fluid handling, stimulation, or drug-delivery functions. The report reviews major application areas including implantable blood-chemistry sensors, neural interfaces, neurostimulation, drug-delivery pumps, microfluidic systems, and emerging nanoscale extensions of the field, while emphasizing that miniaturization can improve sensitivity and enable functions that are difficult or impossible at larger scales. However, it also makes clear that practical development is constrained by biocompatibility, long-term stability, sensor drift, device degradation inside the body, and the high regulatory burden associated with implantable medical systems. The document presents BioMEMS as a rapidly growing and productive field whose future advances are likely to come through continued improvements in fabrication, materials, and reliability.
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Bionics and Neurointerfaces
Neuroprosthetics (also called neural
prosthetics) is a discipline related to
neuroscience and biomedical
engineering concerned with developing
neural prostheses. Neural prostheses
are devices that attempt to substitute
for a motor, sensory or cognitive
modality that might have been
damaged as a result of an injury or a
disease.
Bionics and neurointerfacing are
relatively new concepts. A
neurointerface is a combination of
software and hardware that translates
electrode signals to someth ing which is
understood by an electronic system.
The term bionics is used when we
connect organic matter with something
artificial (human-made).
The design and development of neural
interface electrodes to the brain or
peripheral nerve has been going on for
more than twenty years. Figure 19
shows a mockup of a neuroprosthetic Figure 19. A Neuroprosthetic Interface. Adapted to
the needs of a quadriplegic for control of his environmentselectrode system for the human brain (Duke University)
that is meant to tap into brain signals
and then through the use of a computer allow a quadriplegic to control his environment.
BIOELECTRODES AND BIOMEMS
Electrodes that interface to the brain or nervous system are the most important
components of neuroprosthetic systems. There are basically of two classes of
electrodes. One class does record ing of bioelectric events and the other provides
current to stimulate bioelectrical responses.
Both classes of electrodes need to be designed to be very robust for long term survival
in the hostile environment of the human body. For this reason only the noble metals of
platinum, iridium, gold, and to some extent the resistant metal tungsten are used for
electrodes. Nearly all other metals would corrode in the warm saline environment of
living tissues. Electronic exchange reactions occur at the electrode surfaces in both
recording and stimulation modes.
Many bioelectrodes are nothing more than fine wires insulated down their length and
then exposed at a needle tip where an electrical contact exists to tissue. These are
usually used in research for trying to understand brain function . Sometimes a single
electrode performs both recording as well as stimulation but more frequently the
electrode size and material is optimized to do one function or the other.
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