A Nucleo board for Invasive Ultrasonic Vagus Nerve Stimulation ?

[Bhavya_3]

Hello ST Community, 

I am an Engineering Undergraduate, currently working on an academic biomedical project developing a wearable ultrasonic vagus nerve stimulation (uVNS) patch to reduce stress and anxiety levels in my University, which came the guidelines from the Central Projects. We are transitioning from this product to a production-grade wearble system for precise ultrasound signal generation . The system is under the condition of LIFU (Low Intensity Focused Ultrasound Stimulation). 

Project Main Speciifcations : 

1. High-Performance MCU fro real-time MHz-range ultrasound signals.
2. Multiple high-speed DACs/PWM for transducer control
3. Low-power operation and suitable for wearable patch type device
4. Compatibility with DDS Signal generator, RF amplifier and Ultrasound transducers

I have been exploring the NUCLEO-H743ZI2 for its excellent Cortex-M7 perfomance, but I have also learnt about the best features of NUCLEO-H75Z3I, STM32L476RG, NUCLEO-F446RE. I have a lot of confused in choosing the best board among all for my project. But, I would greatly thankful for your valuable suggestions and insights on helping to choose the suitable board of my project. 

Your kind guidance would be immensely helpful as we move toward implementation. Thank you so much for your time and expertise!

Warm Regards, 

A. Bhavya Sudha

[Andrew Neil]

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@Bhavya_3 wrote:

I would greatly thankful for your valuable suggestions and insights on helping to choose the suitable board of my project. 

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You need to analyse the requirements of your project, and find something which meets those requirements.

You will need to put specific numbers to these:

1. High-Performance MCU fro real-time MHz-range ultrasound signals.
   Define what "high performance" actually means here.
    
2. Multiple high-speed DACs/PWM for transducer control
   How many?
   Again, what does "high speed" actually mean?
   What are the other requirements - bits, sample rates, etc?
    
3. Low-power operation and suitable for wearable patch type device
   What is "low" ?
   What constrains suitability "for wearable patch type device" ?
    
4. Compatibility with DDS Signal generator, RF amplifier and Ultrasound transducers
   Again, make these vague requirements specific.

I don't think any Nucleo board would really be considered "wearable" ?

PS:

STM32 selection tools:

https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/st-mcu-finder-pc.html

https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/stm32-finder.html

https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/stm32-mcu-developer-zone/mcu-portfolio.html

Distributors often have good parametric search tools ...

I'm a bit confused by this:

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@Bhavya_3 wrote:

We are transitioning from this product to a production-grade wearble system

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So does this mean you already have a working system?

[Bhavya_3]

No No sir, we are now trying to develop this device sir.

[Bhavya_3]

Sir, I need a suitable Nucleo board or any other best board in ST Electronic Products  which is used to interface the AD9850 DDS Signal Generator, and should be compatible with the ZHL-32A+ Amplifier and an H - 101 Ultrasound transducer by Sonic Concepts. I need to generate the ultrasound signals with the frequency of 1-5 MHZ using the board and AD9850 Signal generator. 

After completion of the entire prototype, I should have to make the PCB design manufacturing of this entire prototype with 20-30 mm of length and 40-50 mm of width dimensions (like a small patch design)

Will you please kindly suggest the suitable board?

[Andrew Neil]

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@Bhavya_3 wrote:

No No sir, we are now trying to develop this device sir.

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So what did you mean by, "We are transitioning from this product to a production-grade wearble system"?

Please clarify what, exactly, is you objective!

[Bhavya_3]

Sir, I need a suitable Nucleo board or any other best board in ST Electronic Products  which is used to interface the AD9850 DDS Signal Generator, and should be compatible with the ZHL-32A+ Amplifier and an H - 101 Ultrasound transducer by Sonic Concepts. I need to generate the ultrasound signals with the frequency of 1-5 MHZ using the board and AD9850 Signal generator. 

After completion of the entire prototype, I should have to make the PCB design manufacturing of this entire prototype with 20-30 mm of length and 40-50 mm of width dimensions (like a small patch design)

Will you please kindly suggest the suitable board?

[Bhavya_3]

Sir, it is completely a start up project sir, i need to develop this product and have to release in the market sir which makes helpful to the people, in managing the stress. 

[Andrew Neil]

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@Bhavya_3 wrote:

Will you please kindly suggest the suitable board?

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You need to define your requirements - See the notes I gave earlier.

See also: How to Interface Anything to Anything Else.

Once you have defined your requirements, I suggest that you use the product selection tools (linked above) to choose a suitable STM32 chip.

Having identified a suitable chip, go to the Product Page for that chip and look on the 'Tools and Software' tab - that will list available boards for that chip.

[Bhavya_3]

KIndly pursue this document once sir. 

[Ozone]

Sounds at least like an interesting project.
But perhaps you can give some more particular requirements for the device, and the signal to generate.

> High-Performance MCU fro real-time MHz-range ultrasound signals.

What exactly does  "MHz-range ultrasound signals" mean ?
I suppose a sine wave signals. This would require a DAC bandwidth about an order of magnitude higher than the base frequency, to at least somewhat resemble a sine signal.
I'm pretty sure the onboard DAC peripherals of STM32s cannot produce that, nor any comparable general-purpose MCU I know.
Onboard PWM would work. But with frequencies in the MHz range, you will get a somewhat coarse stepsize resolution due to timer input clocks and divider ratios.

> Low-power operation and suitable for wearable patch type device

I think this most probable excludes any H7 device, both due to power and package size reasons.
But you would need to specify average operation parameters and expected battery life of the device to make a choice.

> Compatibility with DDS Signal generator, RF amplifier and Ultrasound transducers

A "compatibility with RF amplifier and ultrasound transducers" would be ultimately your task, as the hardware design part of the project.

But basing the system on an external DDS IC instead of MCU onboard peripherals would significantly change the context. Driving a DDS IC (like e.g. AD9851) requires far less MCU bandwith and performance, and you could focus on the low-power capabilities for the selection.