Swipt- med: simultaneous wireless information and power transfer for medical implants
The growth and extensible research in active implantable medical devices (AIMDs) have provided the opportunity for continuous and remote monitoring of patients with chronic illness. But the major technological challenge is that most of the implants operate on batteries with limited durability. It is difficult to replace these implants as human tissues grow around them and requires surgeries for their removal, which are costly and stressful for the patients. Moreover, battery replacement surgeries require hospital stays which is an additional risk in this era of pandemics like COVID-19. So, the sustainability and eventual fate of implantable medical devices depends on its capability for long-term use.

Most of the AIMDs are equipped with wireless communication systems for data transfer, device monitoring and reprogramming. In this regard, I propose that energy harvesting from radio frequency (RF) signals for a wireless communication system provides a new paradigm called Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transmission (SWIPT) that can allow the wireless implant nodes to recharge their batteries from the RF data signals.

In the literature, SWIPT has been studied for in-door and outdoor environment and has investigated transmission of high energy levels with large antenna dimensions for harvesting energy. There have been no studies in the literature for investigating SWIPT within the human body. My research project will explore and untap the potential of SWIPT for the human body environment. 

The major outcomes of the project include: 1) optimum energy-capacity function and the end-to-end analytical model of SWIPT for deep implants; 2) hardware design of SWIPT for implant communication systems; and 3) feasibility of the novel SWIPT architecture for medical implant technology by in-vitro liquid phantom models and in-vivo living animal experimental studies. The new fundamental knowledge developed from the project could be applied to multiple other domains.