Inductive and Ultrasonic Multi-Tier Interface for Low-Power, Deeply Implantable Medical Devices

We report the development of a novel multi-tier interface which enables the wireless, noninvasive transfer of sufficient amounts of power as well as the collection and transmission of data from low-power, deeply implantable analog sensors. The interface consists of an inductive coupling subsystem and an ultrasonic subsystem. The designed and experimentally verified inductive subsystem ensures that 5 W of power is transferred across 10 mm of air gap between a single pair of PCB spiral coils with an efficiency of 83% using our prototype CMOS logic gate-based driver circuit. The implemented ultrasonic subsystem, based on ultrasonic PZT ceramic discs driven in their low-frequency, radial/planar-excitation mode, further ensures that 29 μW of power is delivered 70 mm deeper inside a homogenous liquid environment-with no acoustic matching layer employed-with an efficiency of 1%. Overall system power consumption is 2.3 W. The implant is intermittently powered every 800 msec; charging a capacitor which provides sufficient power for a duration of ~ 18 msec; sufficient for an implant μC operating at a frequency of 500 KHz to transmit a nibble (4 bits) of digitized sensed data.

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