Non-coil, optimal sources for wireless powering of sub-millimeter implantable devices

Abstract

This paper presents non-coil sources to improve the wireless power transfer efficiency for implantable device used in various medical applications — cardiovascular devices, endoscope in the small intestine, and neurostimulator in the brain. For each application, a bound on the power transfer efficiency and the optimal source achieving such bound are analytically solved. The results reveal that depending on the depth of the implantable devices, power can be transferred to a sub-millimeter scaled receiver with the efficiency ranging from −57 dB to −33 dB, which is up to 6.6 times higher than the performance of existing coil-based source systems. The technique introduced in this paper can be broadly applied to other medical applications.