Flexible Wirelessly Powered Implantable Device

Abstract

Brain implantable devices have various limitations in terms of size, power, biocompatibility and mechanical properties that need to be addressed. This paper presents a neural implant that is powered wirelessly using a flexible biocompatible antenna. This delivers power to an LED at the end of the shaft to provide a highly efficient demonstration. The proposed design in this study combines mechanical properties and practicality given the numerous constraints of this implant typology. We have applied a modular structure approach to the design of this device considering three modules of antenna, conditioner circuit and shank. The implant was fabricated using a flexible substrate of Polyimide and encapsulated by PDMS for chronic implantation. In addition, finite element method COMSOL Multiphysics simulation of mechanical forces acting on the implant and shank was carried out to validate a viable shank conformation-encapsulation combination that will safely work under operational stress with a satisfactory margin of safety.

Neural microprobe modelling and microfabrication for improved implantation and mechanical failure mitigation

“…Four probe shapes, incorporating a platform which measures approximately 1.2 × 1.2 mm, and a 3.35 mm shank ( figure 2 ), were adapted from a previous work [ 10 ]. A full description of the preliminary simulations based on the finite-element method using COMSOL Multiphysics may be found in our previous work [ 10 ], and a similar method has been employed in other publications [ 11 , 12 ] to significant effect. This paper builds on the results of our previous work by incorporating buckling force models, angled implantation simulation and fabrication of the accurate probes with experimental validation.…”

Flexible Piezoelectric Sensors for Miniaturized Sonomyography

“…However, this can challenge the flexibility of the sensor/transducer. There are three possible alternative substrates that serve as a backing for the device: silicon, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polyimide (PI) [12,13].…”

A Compact Dual-Band Implantable Antenna for Wireless Biotelemetry in Arteriovenous Grafts

“…Although over the past few years, immense research has been devoted to antenna design for biomedical telemetry applications [22][23][24][25], the majority of them are designed for deep implantable devices such as leadless pacemakers [26,27], deep brain stimulators [28,29], and ingestible endoscopes [21,30]. Specifically, only a few implantable antennas are targeted for the arm [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] and none for internal implantation for hemodialysis applications.…”