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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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Figure 24. A Representation of the Retinal
Prosthesis: (A) camera in the glass frame, (B)
wireless transmitter, (C) extraocular electronic case
(receiver), and (D) intraocular implant electrode array
( http ://biomed .brown .edu/Cou rses/BI108/2006 -
108websites/group03retinalimplants/interoccular. htm)
Figure 25. A BioMEMS-Fabricated 4x4 Microelectrode
Retinal Array
(http ://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BI 108/2006-
10Swebsites/ group03retinalimplants/interoccular.htm)
A retinal based neuroprosthesis is designed to use electrical pulse stimulation of the
remaining viable retinal cells to evoke the sensation of light at discrete points within the
visual field. These apparent points of light are called phosphenes.
The strategy is to pulse the retina with sufficiently close-spaced electrodes such that
the phosphenes would combine to present an organized pattern to the patient's
perceptions. A completely implanted device is desired that has the electrode array
connected to a pulse driver circuit, power, and signal processing. All of these
components must be miniaturized as much as possible so the entire device can be
implanted.
Microimplantable devices based on BioMEMS structures are being developed that
capture their power from outside the body by wireless techniques. Bidirectional
communication is often needed to provide feedback on device function. Some
communication links need a wide bandwidth for real-time data transm ission and this is
challenging since such types of communication are inherently of a high power drain .
Figure 26 is an artist's conception of the retinal implant designed by the Boston group.
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