Strategy for Design of Misalignment Tolerant Inductive Powering System for Medical Implants

Despite the great interest in inductive powering of implantable medical devices there are still several major problems to overcome in the field. Specific problems associated with inductive powering systems for implants preclude borrowing of industrial solutions. Development of original design strategies and formal optimization procedures for wirelessly powered medical implants can be performed in a wide variety of ways. We suggest that ultimate performance metrics of the IPU can be defined in terms of time. Further, this metric depends whether periodic charging (e.g. neurostimulator) or fully autonomous operation of implant (e.g. artificial heart) is required. Based on this proposition specific approach was developed and verified. It was found that proposed design helps to combine peak power delivered to the load (2 ... 2.5 W) with relatively high power transfer efficiency (60 ... 80%).