Front-End of an Implantable Medical Device

Filipe Ramos#1, Michel Santana#2, Rômulo Volpato*3, Robson L. Morreno#4 and Tales Pimenta#5
#
Universidade Federal de Itajuba
Itajuba - Brazil
1
filipop_efei@yahoo.com.br
2
michel.santana@uol.com.br
4
moreno@unifei.edu.br
5
tales@unifei.edu.br
*
Instituto Nacional de Telecomunicações
Santa Rita do Sapucai - Brazil
3
romulo@inatel.br

Abstract — This work presents a wireless human implantable
powered by inductive coupling. It discusses the communication
between the external reader and the implantable device (BioID)
as well as the powering by inductive coupling. The article
presents considerations on how to keep the power supply
independent on the distance and alignment between the reader
and the BioID since the power transfer depends on inductive
coupling and resonance frequency of LC circuits in the tag.
Others questions will be discussed such as the type of modulation
and circuitry.
Keywords — Inductive coupling, implantable device, ASK,
coupling, frequency resonance
The external unit can be a device specifically designed for
that purpose, capable of collecting and managing the data. The
external unit could send the collected data to a physician
through phone line or Internet.
The system operation is similar to an RFID system in
which the implantable device works as an RFID tag. The
energy to run the implantable device is obtained from the
external device by inductive coupling. It uses the inductive
coupling at 13.56 MHz [1] since it promotes low absorption
by human tissues. Figure 2 shows the basic block diagram of
the wireless implantable system.

I. INTRODUCTION
Some biomedical data, such as blood levels of cholesterol,
urea, oxygen and sugar (glucose) demand blood samples that
are inconvenient and uncomfortable to obtain. It can become
worse if the patient needs frequent monitoring as it is the case
of diabetes that may require many blood samples a day.
The current researches are searching and developing
sensors for biomedical application, in which the electrical
properties of the materials vary according the level of specific
substances. By processing the electrical behavior of the
sensors, it is possible to evaluate the substance level on the
blood.
Our project is the development of an integrated system,
named BioID, for the measurement of biomedical data
through an implantable device. The integrated system is
basically an integrated circuit and the biosensors that are
located inside the body, as indicated by Figure 1. The system
is comprised also of an external unit which is responsible to
provide energy to the implantable device and to collect the
biomedical data measurements from it.

Fig. 1 The basic structure of implantable device Fig. 2 The basic diagram block of implantable medical device
 One of the major difficulties in our project was the (4)
evaluation of the amount of power available ate the
implantable device. Since the system is supposed to be jwM ( jwM )i1 (4)
operated by the patient, the distance and the alignment V1 = i1 jwL1 −
1
between the external unit and the implantable device may ( jwL 2 + )
jwC1
present large variations.

II. FREQUENCY RESONANCE VARIATION And

The inductive coupling between the reader and the tag
i1 (5)
occurs due to magnetic fields. According to electrometric V1 = i1 jwL1 + ( wM) 2
1
theory, the inductive coupling occurs in the near field. By ( jwL2 + )
considering, initially, the free space theory, Figure 3 jwC1
represents the basic coupling.
The total impedance in the primary of inductive circuits as
show in figure 3 will be:
V1 ( wM ) 2 (6)
Z1 = = jwL1 +
i1 1
( jwL2 + )
jwC1

But :
M = k L1L 2 (7)
Fig. 3 Basic circuit of inductive coupling between reader and tag

If the distance between inductor L1 and L2 vary, as it is the

case of an implantable device, the voltage inducted in L2 will Where k is a coupling coefficient between L1 and L2.
(8)
vary. Consequently, the voltage inducted in L2 depends on the w 2 k 2 L1L 2
amount of magnetic field line produced by L1 crosses L2, as Z1 = jwL1 +
1
indicated by Figure 4. ( jwL2 + )
jwC1

In this way the parallel resonance of secondary is reflect in

the primary multiplier by the term (wM)2 . By the way, the
secondary resonance is a inductance L2 in series with the
( wM ) 2
term . So, the equivalent circuits show in figure 5:
jwL1
Figure 4 Electromagnetic coupling between L1 and L2

The basic circuit equations of figure 2 are:

V 1 = i1 jwL1 − i 2 jwM (1)

1
0 = i 2( jwL 2 + ) − i1 jwM (2)
jwC1

where M is a mutual inductance between L1 and L2

For solve the equation (2) in terms of i2.It is result in:

jwM
i2 = i1 (3)
1 Figure 5 The equivalent circuits of secondary
( jwL 2 + )
jwC1

and now in equation (1): The circuits shown in figure 5, will represent by:
 ( wM )2 1 (9) The best performance of the inductive coupling will occur
( jwl2 + + )i 2 = 0 at a wide range of frequencies due to variations of the
jwL1 jwC1
coupling coefficient. Therefore, the implantable device will be
subject to different power supply voltages.
Thus equation (9) may be written in terms of K, The implantable device circuit should not change its
performance due to change of resonance frequency, and
w 2k 2L1L2 1 (10) therefore should provide mechanism to counterfeit it. The
( jwL 2 + + )i 2 = 0 basic power supply circuit is a half wave voltage rectifier, in
jwL1 jwC1
parallel with L2 and C1. Since the voltage is subject to large
variations, as indicated in Figure 6, the system uses a zener
Then the equation (10) may be rewritten in the form,
diode for stabilization and initial regulation.

1 (11) III. COMMUNICATION

[ jwL 2(1 − k 2 ) + ]i 2 = 0
jwC1 The communication between the reader and the BioID uses
ASK modulation at 13.56 MHz, as indicated in Figure 7. The
So in parallel resonance the inductive impedance must be communication frequency is 211.875 KHz using crystal
the same to capacitive impedance. oscillator at the reader and integrated oscillator at the BioID
with a precision of 10 ppm.
1 (12)
2πFres L2(1 − k 2 ) =
2πFres C1

So the resonance frequency will be shown in (13)

Fig. 7 Communication between the reader and the BioID.

1 The BioID uses an envelop detector, formed by a half wave

Fres = (13)
2π L2(1 − k 2 )C1
where k is the coupling coefficient.
As can be inferred from (13), the tag resonance frequency
varies along with the coupling coefficient between L1 and L2.
Therefore, the total voltage inducted in L2 depends on the
resonance frequency of parallel circuits formed by L2 and C1.
Figure 5 presents Spice simulations of expression (13) that
represents the circuit from Figure 3, where the coupling
coefficient varies from 0.05 to 0.3.
rectifier and a low pass filter. Since the signal from the Reader
to the BioID also provides power, a half wave rectifier and a
low pass filter is cascaded to the envelop detector. It combines,
therefore the ASK detector and the power supply circuits. In
this way, the integrated circuits technology must support high
voltage diodes. In our circuit, LC circuit may reach up to 40 V
at a coefficient of 0.3.
The communication from the BioID to the reader uses the
load modulation technique, since it is easily integrated.
The physical distance between the reader and the BioID is
very short, compared to the carrier frequency wavelength,
which is 22 meters. Since the inductance coupling occurs at
few centimeters, it is a Near Field Communication – NFC.
The load modulation is basically an electronic switch in
parallel with a resonance circuit. When the switch turns on, it
is generated a subcarrier near carrier frequency, as indicated in
Figure 8. The electronic switch forms an amplitude
modulation, similar to the ASK modulation. This modulation
creates an AMDSB signal with a resonance carrier frequency
and dual side band subcarriers from the switch. Therefore, the
reader must use an AMDSB detector to retrieve data from the
BioID. In this way, the system works like a half duplex
communication system.

Fig. 6 Coefficient k ranging from 0.05 to 0.3.


Fig. 8 Load modulation
IV. CONCLUSIONS
This work presented an implanted device to be used to
monitor biological data. The proposed implantable device is
power by inductive coupling provided by an external reader.
The amount of power varies according to the distance and
alignment between the reader and the implantable device
(BioID). It is presented some considerations over the amount
of power available and how to control it. It is also discussed
the circuit topology and communications between them.
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