IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMSI: REGULAR PAPERS, VOL. 54, NO.

10, OCTOBER 2007

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A Wide-Band Power-Efficient Inductive

Wireless Link for Implantable Microelectronic
Devices Using Multiple Carriers
Maysam Ghovanloo, Member, IEEE, and Suresh Atluri, Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper presents a novel inductive link for wireless

transmission of power and data to biomedical implantable microelectronic devices using multiple carrier signals. Achieving higher
data bandwidth without compromising the power efficiency is the
driving force behind using multiple separate carriers. Two separate pairs of coils have been utilized for inductive power and forward data transmission, plus a pair of miniature antennas for back
telemetry. One major challenge, however, is to minimize the interference among these carriers especially on the implantable side,
where size and power are highly limited. Planar power coils with
spiral shape are optimized in geometry to provide maximum coupling coefficient . The data coils are designed rectangular in shape
and wound across the power coils diameter to be oriented perpendicular to the power coil planes. The goal is to maximize data
coils direct coupling, while minimize their cross-coupling with the
power coils. The effects of coils geometry, orientation, relative distance, and misalignments on the coupling coefficients have been
modeled and experimentally evaluated.
Index TermsCoupling, implantable microelectronic devices
(IMDs), inductive link, neuroprosthesis, planar spiral coils,
telemetry.

I. INTRODUCTION

N INDUCTIVE link between two magnetically coupled

coils that constitute a transformer is so far the only viable
solution to wirelessly energize high performance implantable
microelectronic devices (IMDs) with high power requirements
such as neuromuscular stimulators, cochlear implants, and visual prostheses [1][7]. These IMDs are either battery-less and
should be continuously powered from an external portable battery, or have miniature rechargeable batteries that should be inductively charged on a regular basis. In both cases, the inductive
power transmission should be very efficient to maximize battery
lifetime, minimize the size of the battery, and eliminate overheating of the surrounding tissue due to heat dissipation within
the implant or within the surrounding tissue as a result of surpassing the exposure limit to electromagnetic field [8].
IMDs that substitute sensory modalities such as vision and
hearing also need a wide-band forward wireless link to transfer
sizeable amounts of real-time information from external artificial sensors, such as a camera or microphone, to a large number

Manuscript received July 20, 2006; revised November 23, 2006 and March
26, 2007. This paper was recommended by Associate Editor B. Zhao.
M. Ghovanloo is with the GT Bionics Laboratory, Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
USA (e-mail: mghovan@ncsu.edu).
S. Atluri is with Integrated Device Technologies Incorporated, San Jose, CA
95138 USA (e-mail: suresh.atluri@gmail.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCSI.2007.905187

of neurons in the central nervous system (CNS). These IMDs

usually communicate with the CNS by driving tens to hundreds
of stimulating sites through multiple parallel channels [4][7].
As a result, wide-band data transmission is another requirement
for the inductive wireless link. The link should be robust enough
not to be affected by patients motion artifacts, minor coil misalignments, and external noise and interference. To achieve this,
a back telemetry link is needed to form a closed-loop implant
power regulation mechanism and improve data integrity through
handshaking protocols [9]. The back telemetry link can also
be used for measuring the stimulating sites impedance in situ,
which is important in monitoring sites chemical stability over
time [10]. Back telemetry is also useful in recording the neural
response to stimulus pulses for accurate electrode placement,
stimulation parameter adjustments, and for research purposes.
The wireless link operating frequency, also known as the
carrier frequency, is one of the most important parameters of the
implantable biomedical system. Traditionally, a single carrier
frequency has been used for inductive power and data transmission from the outside world towards the implanted device [4],
[11][15]. Achieving high power-transmission efficiency, high
data-transmission bandwidth, and coupling insensitivity using
the traditional single carrier method would be very challenging,
if not impossible, because of the conflicting constraints that are
involved in achieving high performance in two or more of the
above system requirements. For example, increasing the carrier
frequency could result in a wider bandwidth for forward data
transmission. However, it degrades power transmission efficiency due to more power absorption and deposition in the tissue
[16] and more power dissipation in the external and internal
power conditioning blocks [17]. Establishing a back telemetry
mechanism by changing the secondary coil loading [load shift
keying(LSK)] relies on the subsequent changes in the power
carrier amplitude or current on the primary side [9], [18]. This
method is popular in radio frequency identification (RFID) applications, even though it results in loss of power efficiency [19].
Researchers have recently proposed utilizing two carriers to
achieve a better performance by separating some of the aforementioned functions. In [20] and [21] the inductive link is used
for power and forward data transmission, while a high frequency
carrier is utilized for back telemetry. In [22] and [23] a high frequency carrier is used for bidirectional telemetry and the inductive link is solely used for powering or recharging the implant.
Finally in [24][26] the inductive link is used for power and
back telemetry, while a separate link is proposed for forward
data transmission.

1549-8328/$25.00 2007 IEEE

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMSI: REGULAR PAPERS, VOL. 54, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2007

Fig. 1. Block diagram of a modern neuroprosthetic system with both wireless neural recording and stimulation capabilities, which utilizes the proposed multicarrier wireless link with emphasis on the blocks that are directly related to this link. The upper, middle, and lower rows of blocks are dedicated to power, forward
data, and back telemetry functions, respectively. The inductive part of the wireless link is enclosed in a dashed box.

In the rest of this paper, we describe a novel solution for utilizing multiple independent carrier signals to resolve the aforementioned conflicts between three major functions; power, forward data, and back telemetry, in design of a wireless links
for high performance IMDs. Section II provides an overview
of an IMD system that utilizes this multicarrier wireless link.
Section III reviews the theoretical basis and important considerations behind the design of the multicarrier inductive link along
with numerous simulation results. Section IV examines the effects of misalignment, which is an important aspect of the inductive links in IMDs. Measurement results with the multicarrier
wireless link are depicted in Section V followed by concluding
remarks in Section VI.
II. MULTICARRIER WIRELESS LINK
We propose utilizing three carrier signals at three different
frequencies and amplitude levels which are properly selected
for the specific functions expected from the wireless link [27].
MHz high-amplitude
a) A low-frequency
V carrier for power transmission from the
external energy source (battery) to the implant.
MHz mediumb) A medium-frequency
V carrier for forward data
amplitude
transmission from the external sensor to the implant.
MHz low-amplitude
c) A high-frequency
V carrier for back telemetry from the implant
to the external part of the system.
Employing multiple carriers would help to effectively isolate
many of the conflicting requirements in design of the wireless
link with only one carrier. In a multicarrier system, individual
parameters of every carrier can be optimized for its associated
function(s) and requirements regardless of the other carriers. On
the other hand, every individual carrier requires its dedicated
coils or antennas, which could potentially add to the implant size
and complexity. The main challenge in using multiple simultaneous carriers, however, is the interference between different
carrier signals. Among interference issues, the most important
one is eliminating the strong power carrier interference with data
carrier on the implantable receiver side, where the power budget
and size are extremely limited. To overcome this issue we have
adopted the following remedies.
1) Utilizing two individual pairs of coils dedicated to power
and forward data transmission. The geometry and orienta-

tion of these coils are selected such that they occupy a small
space, direct coupling within each pair is maximized, and
cross-coupling between the two pairs is minimized.
2) Instead of amplitude shift keying (ASK), which is the
method used in most similar applications [1], [4], [14],
[20], [21], the data carrier is frequency shift keyed (FSK)
to be more robust against noise and interference [15].
is chosen 5 10
3) The forward data carrier frequency
to protimes higher than the power carrier frequency
vide enough spacing between the carrier harmonic components in the frequency domain. This would allow reliable
detection of the forward data bits on the implant receiver
side with proper tuning, filtering, and utilization of the
FSK modulation and demodulation technique [15]. Simis selected
ilarly the back telemetry carrier frequency
10 50 times higher than
.
, is adjustable on
4) The forward data carrier amplitude,
the transmitter side based on the quality of the received
can be increased in response
data on the implant side.
to an increase in the receiver bit-error rate (BER).
Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of a modern neuroprosthetic
system that utilizes the proposed multicarrier wireless link with
emphasis on the blocks that are directly related to the link. These
blocks provide a bidirectional wireless interface between the external artificial sensors and internal microelectrodes that interact
with the neural tissue. Such prosthesis would be capable of both
stimulating the neural tissue through multiple channels at high
rates as well as recording several channels of the neural response
through its back telemetry link, while maintaining high power
transmission efficiency. The upper row of blocks in Fig. 1 is responsible for power transfer and conditioning across the skin. A
class-E power amplifier that is controlled by the external control unit drives , which is the primary power coil. Power is
, which forms an LC tank circuit, resonating
induced into
to boost the received power carrier.
is followed by a
at
full-wave rectifier and a low dropout regulator to supply the rest
of the implant [17], [28].
The middle row of blocks in Fig. 1 is dedicated to forward
data transmission. Forward data is a serial data bit stream that
mainly includes various stimulus parameters such as site address, amplitude, phase, and timing information. Any digital
modulation scheme that supports wide-band serial data transmission with robustness against noise and interference can be

GHOVANLOO AND ATLURI: WIDE-BAND POWER-EFFICIENT INDUCTIVE WIRELESS LINK FOR IMDS

utilized in the forward data path. Unlike traditional single carrier links, low quality factors and a high modulation indexes can
be chosen for this link to achieve low BER at high data rates
without degrading the system power efficiency. Our choice was
a phase coherent frequency shift keying (pc-FSK) method deconsists of two frequencies,
scribed in [15]. Hence,
and
, which represent logic 0 and logic 1, respectively.
The pc-FSK carrier passes through an adjustable gain stage that
is part of a series-parallel
drives , the primary data coil.
LC tank circuit, which provides a wide-band low-Q inductive
link that passes the high-rate pc-FSK carrier with minimum distortion [see Fig. 12(a), shown later] [15]. On the implant side,
picks up the forward data carrier signal, which then passes
through a high-pass filter (HPF) to block any residual low-frecomponents resulted from power carrier interferquency
ence. Finally, a pc-FSK demodulator converts the data carrier
into a serial data bit stream and a constant frequency clock [15].
Those blocks in the lower row of Fig. 1 are involved in back
telemetry of various information such as the implant operational
and power supply status, site impedance values, handshaking
signals, and recorded neural response to the external part of the
system. Once again, the designer is free to choose a proper modulation scheme depending on the system requirement without
affecting other functions. We chose pulsewidth modulation
(PWM) to improve the robustness of the back telemetry link
against noise and interference [29]. The PWM signal passes
through a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) that generates the
in the industrial-scientific-medical
back telemetry carrier
(ISM) band. VCO is designed to operate at low voltages in
order to minimize implant power consumption. The VCO
output drives a wide-band miniature patch antenna, , which
is tuned at
[23]. The back telemetry signal in the ISM-band
is picked up outside of the body by an FM receiver equipped
with a larger patch antenna, . Finally, a PWM demodulator,
which is a synchronized timer/counter, recovers the back
telemetry signal, while converting it to digitized values [29].
The rest of this article focuses on the inductive part of the proposed multicarrier wireless link, which is enclosed in a dashed
box in Fig. 1. A brief reference to a possible implementation of
the microwave back telemetry link is included in Section V-C.
III. INDUCTIVE LINK GEOMETRIC CONSIDERATIONS
The inductive part of the developed wireless link, enclosed
in a dashed box in Fig. 1, consists of four coils in two pairs:
for power and
for forward data transmission.
The self and mutual inductances among these coils are critical
parameters that affect the performance of the wireless link.
A. Self and Mutual Inductance
Self inductance is the ratio of the magnetic flux generated
in an area enclosed by a conductor loop to the current passing
through the loop. According to [30], for the condition of a loop
, where and are the radii of the wire and the
with
loop, respectively, self inductance can be approximated by

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turns, if the coil length is much

In circular coils with
,
smaller than , the self-inductance is approximately
is the self-inductance of a single-turn loop derived
where
in (1). Whereas, for the case of a planar spiral coil having
turns with different radii
the overall selfinductance should be calculated from

(2)
where
if
, and
otherwise [30].
,
The mutual inductance between two conductor loops,
depends on the proportion of the magnetic flux generated by one
loop that passes through the other loop (flux coupling). Therehighly depends on loops geometries, relative orienfore,
tation, and magnetic properties of the medium. The mutual inductance of two circular coils with radii , , center to center
distance , and lateral misalignment is

(3)
and
are the Bessel functions of the zeroth and first
where
order, respectively [30].
The mutual inductance between two coils is often normalized
with respect to their self inductance to reach a qualitative sense
of how strongly they are coupled. The coupling coefficient
between two coils with self inductances
and
is defined as
(4)
Unfortunately the closed-form analytical solutions for calculating self and mutual coil inductances either become too
complicated to be practical in design of the inductive links or
lose their accuracy for multiple coils with various geometries
and orientations. Therefore, one should either use tabulated parameterized equations [31] or coil analysis software such as
FastHenry-2 [32], HFSS, or Maxwell [33]. FastHenry-2 is a
quasi-static EM solver for computing frequency-dependant self
and mutual inductances as well as resistances of arbitrary 3-D
conductive structures. To perform electromagnetic (EM) modeling, simulations, coil analysis, and optimizations we developed a MATLAB code that generates 3-D geometry files of
two or more coils for FastHenry-2. Impedance matrixes generated by FastHenry-2 can then be used in LC circuits in SPICE
for time- and frequency-domain simulations on carrier signals.
This flexible approach allowed us to optimize coil designs by
sweeping the coils geometrical or electrical parameters and observe the effects of parameter changes on the performance of the
inductive wireless link.
B. Power Coils

(1)

The inductive link power transmission efficiency

is the
key parameter in design of the power coils, which should be

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMSI: REGULAR PAPERS, VOL. 54, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2007

Fig. 3. Coupling coefficient between two planar spiral coils with R

and distance d between the coils. It can be seen
R
at every distance that maximizes k .
that there is an optimal value for R

10 mm as a function of

Fig. 2. To maximize the coupling coefficient k between two identical planar

, the inner radius R , the spacing between
spiral coils, the outer radius R
two adjacent turns , and the number of turns N should be selected such that
=R
:
.
R

1
= 0 34

maximized. Other important factors are the coils size, separation, misalignment effects, and surgical considerations. According to Ko et al. [12] in a simplified scenario, the parameters
affecting the link power efficiency are
(5)
and
are quality factors of the primary and secwhere
in Fig. 1), and
is the
ondary coils, respectively ( and
and
can be
coupling coefficient between the two coils.
increased by reducing coils parasitic resistance and forming inductivecapacitive (LC) tank circuits tuned at . However, the
, depends on the coils self and mumost effective parameter,
tual inductances according to (4), which in turn depend on their
geometry, separation, and orientation.
We chose circular, planar, spiral geometry for the power coils,
which is one of the most widely used methods in design of the
inductively powered IMDs. The spiral coils are fairly robust
against lateral misalignments and their optimal design has been
covered in prior literature [30]. According to Zierhofer et al., a
is the
spiral coil can be described with three parameters:
is the inner radius, and is the spacing beouter radius,
tween every two adjacent turns of the coil. Obviously, should
always be greater than , the diameter of the coil wire. The
number of turns in a spiral coil can then be calculated from
(6)
The closed-form equations suggest that the coupling coefficient should not be a strong function of in circular coils since
by increasing both numerator and denominator of (4) increase
at almost the same rate. In case of spiral coils, however, our simwas increased, couulation results in Fig. 2 showed that as
pling coefficient kept on increasing until
,
in [30]. There
which is in agreement with
also needs to be a compromise between and the coil wire diameter, , which also affects the coil parasitic resistance and
eventually its factor.

is the outer
Another design parameter that can affect
diameter of
and
coils with respect to their distance .
and
equally help in inAccording to (3) increasing
. However, there is a size constraint over
,
creasing
which is imposed by the maximum allowable size of the im(
plant. Therefore, a design guideline is to choose
in spiral coils) as large as the implant size allows. To find the
, we limited
to 10 mm and changed
best
from 8 to 24 mm for different values of , while maintaining
. Fig. 3 shows how the optimal
increases with and changes in a wider range.
C. Data Coils
The geometry and orientation of the data coil pair
is very important because the power carrier amplitude is usually much larger than the data carrier amplitude on both sides.
Therefore, unless the interference of the power carrier over data
carrier is adequately suppressed on the receiver side (across ),
demodulation of the data carrier and detection of the forward
data bits would not be possible. Geometry and orientation of
the data coils should be designed in a way that they occupy a
, and very small
small space, have a large direct coupling
,
, and
cross-coupling with the power coil pair ( ,
in Fig. 1).
Our approach is to take advantage of the relationship between
and the relative orientation of two coaxial conductive loops
to minimize undesired mutual couplings. Soma et al. analyzed
the effects of coils misalignments in [34] and concluded that if
one of the coils is tilted by an angle , their mutual inductance
reduces by a factor of
(7)
where is the relative center to center distance between the
coils, and is the angle between their planes. Therefore, parallel
coils provide maximum coupling while those at right angles will
be weakly coupled, especially if they are symmetrical as well.
Fig. 4 is the result of a simulation that illustrates the variation
of between two identical rectangular coils when one coil is
rotated from 0 in parallel to the second coil (position A) by
90 . The coils have minimum when they are at right angle

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Fig. 4. Coupling coefficient between two identical rectangular 1-turn coils in

parallel [A], perpendicular [B], and in the same plane [C] versus the relative
angle between their planes. The relative distance between coils is constant (10
mm) in all three positions.

(position B). Now keeping the first coil at 90 , the second coil
is rotated from 0 to
. The rotations are done pivotal to one
side of each coil such that the original vertical distance between
the coils is not altered. It can be seen that improves when both
coils are in the same plane (position C).
Another guideline in design of the data coils is that the receiver
data coil should be implemented within the same space that
occupies inside the implant. Thus, we chose to be rectangular
to give it the maxin shape and wound across the diameter of
. The external data coil
imum possible length
was chosen with the same shape, wound across
to be perpendicular to both power coils but parallel to in order to achieve a
fair amount of coupling
between two parallel wires on the
and
rectangular coils. Thin wires can be
closer edges of
used in construction of and since they do not need to carry
large currents as opposed to and . It is important especially
for
not to notably increase the size of the implant.
Fig. 5 shows the final configuration of the power and data
coils rendered in FastHenry-2. It can be seen that data coils in
this design are located in position C in Fig. 4. Even though data
coils could have a higher coupling if they were held in position
A, when considering the cross-coupling between each data coil
and the power coils, position C proves to be the best option. In
mm and the maximum
the model shown in Fig. 5,
distance between the power coils is assumed to be about 10 mm.
Therefore, we can conclude from Fig. 3 that the optimum radius
is about 20 mm. The primary
for the external power coil
and secondary data coils are then considered to be rectangular
and measure 42 mm 5 mm and 21 mm 1 mm, respectively,
and . Table I summarize
wound across the diameter of
the self inductance as well as direct and cross-coupling coefficients between these coils, simulated by FastHenry-2. It can
, which according to (5) has a strong effect on
be seen that
, is the largest coefficient and the desired data coils coupling
is significantly higher than all other undesired
coefficient
cross-coupling coefficients.
Since data coils are wound around the high current power coils
(see Fig. 5), yet another consideration in minimizing the powerdata coils cross-coupling is to zero out the sum of power coil currents that pass through the data coil loops. This would eliminate

Fig. 5. 3-D rendering of the inductive part of the multicarrier wireless link consisting of a pair of planar spiral coils in parallel for power transmission and a
pair of rectangular coils on the same plane for forward data transmission, which
are vertical to the power coil planes. Table I shows the self-inductance and mutual coupling between these coils.
TABLE I
SELF-INDUCTANCE AND COUPLING COEFFICIENTS FOR
POWER AND DATA COILS

any electromotive force (EMF) that could be induced from the

power coils into the data coils. This is the opposite of what is desired in current-sense transformers [25]. This requirement was
satisfied by winding the data coils across the entire diameter of
the power coils, making sure that they encompass equal number
of wires passing current in two opposite directions, thus zeroing
the net current and canceling out their interfering EMF.
D. Simultaneous Data and Power Circuit Simulation
To evaluate the interference between power and forward data
carriers in time and frequency domains, circuit simulations
were performed with the inductive wireless link LC-tank circuits, shown in Fig. 1. In these simulations, we used the coil
kHz
parameters of Table I. Power is transmitted at
V using stagger tuning [13]. FSK modulation is
and
MHz and
used to transmit data at high rate using
-V data carrier as explained in [15]. The transient and
frequency responses of the inductive wireless link in Fig. 6 show
the insignificant effect of the power carrier interference with the
received FSK data carrier despite the exaggerated amplitude of
the power carrier. This is the result of proper coil design, large
carrier frequency separation, and bandpass filtering effect of the
tuned LC-tanks. Further high-pass filtering on the received data
carrier can be added on-chip, as shown in Fig. 1.

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Fig. 6. (a) Transient and (b) frequency responses of the inductive part of the
wireless link in Fig. 1 showing the small power carrier interference on the received FSK data carrier as a result of the measures explained in Section III.

IV. EFFECTS OF COIL MISALIGNMENTS

Coil alignment in inductive links is usually enforced by using
permanent magnets in the center of the internal and external
coils as a mean to align the external coil with the implanted one
and hold it in place across the skin. The effects of coil misalignments are important in design of inductive links for implantable
devices because the implant user might remove the external coil
and does not place it back in the exact same location. The coils
might also move or vibrate as the user walks or jogs. Different
types of misalignments between two circular coils have been
analyzed in [34]. Planar spiral coils consist of several circular
coils and follow the same trend with less sensitivity due to interactions between every turn in one coil and all other turns in
the other coil [30].
Fig. 7 shows simulation results using FastHenry-2 and
,
, and
change as a result of coils
MATLAB on how
lateral misalignments along X- and Y-axes at constant
mm [36]. The spiral power coils show a high direct coupling
shows similar
when they are perfectly aligned. In Fig. 7(a),
bell-shaped drops along X- and Y-axes misalignments due to
and
in
the power coils symmetry. On the other hand,

Fig. 7. Direct and cross-coupling coefficients between coils in Fig. 5 versus

X-axis and Y-axis misalignments a d = 10 mm. (a) k . (b) k . (c) k .
(d) Overlapping k and k at X = 0 mm to observe the range of acceptable
misalignments along Y-axis.

Fig. 7(b) and 7(c) shows that data coils are far less sensitive to
misalignments along the X-axis (along their length) compared to

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Fig. 8. Measurement setup showing the inductive part of the multicarrier wireless link with a pair of planar spiral coils for power transmission and a second
pair of coils wound across the power coils for forward data transmission. These
coils are made of Litz wire (Set-3 in Table II).

Fig. 9. Network analyzer was used to measure fabricated coils direct and crosscoupling coefficients, while changing their relative distance d.

TABLE II
HANDMADE POWER AND DATA COILS SPECIFICATIONS

for Set-2, while the size of all internal coils was limited by the
implant size to 22 mm in diameter. The number of turns for
the data coils was increased to 3 from only 1 turn in Fig. 5 to
and to better cope with the coil misalignment efimprove
fects. However, we did not optimize the number of turns in data
coils. Coils self inductances were measured during fabrication
using a precision LCR meter at 100 kHz (Instek LCR-819).

All inductances are in microhertz and all sizes are in millimeters.

Width of the rectangular data coil,
Length of the rectangular data coil.
Number of Litz wire strands in power coil.
Number of Litz wire strands in data coil.

the Y-axis (perpendicular to their X-Z plane). Because in X-axis

misalignment, the distance between data coils does not change
and they still hold their symmetry with respect to the power coils.
It can be concluded from these simulations that Fig. 5 coil
configuration can very well handle coil misalignments along the
X-axis. However, along the Y-axis, the misalignments are accept. This can be seen more clearly
able only as long as
and
surfaces and looking at a certain
by overlapping
cross-section of the overlapped curves. This is shown in Fig. 7(d),
which indicates that with the coil dimensions used in these simulations, lateral misalignments up to 2 mm in the Y direction
are acceptable. In order to reduce data coils sensitivity against Y
misalignments, one possible solution is to add a second pair of
forward data coils in Y-Z plane perpendicular to the first pair (
and in X-Z plane) as well as the power coils ( and in X-Y
plane). The second pair of data coils, which can alternatively be
utilized for back telemetry, should be used for forward data
only when the BER through the first pair is not satisfactory.
V. MEASUREMENT RESULTS
Three sets of prototype data and power coil pairs similar to
Fig. 5 were hand made using coil copper wire gauge 22 and
Litz wire gauge 46 (40 strands for power and 7 strands for
data coils) for experimental measurements and comparison with
simulation results. Fig. 8 shows one of these test setups and
Table II summarizes the geometrical and electrical specifications of these coils. Using considerations in Section III, the external coils inner and outer radii were designed for the optimal
relative distances, , of about 10 mm for sets 1 and 3, and 18 mm

A. Coupling Coefficient Measurements

A network analyzer (Agilent E5071B) was used to perform
two-port measurements on every pair of coils in the inductive
link from 300 kHz to 10 MHz and obtain the S-parameters, as
shown in Fig. 9. Meanwhile, we changed the relative distance
between transmitter and receiver coils to observe and compare the effects of coils distance variations. The S-parameters
were then converted to Z-parameters using Agilent Advanced
Design System (ADS). The two-port Z-matrix includes the self
and mutual inductances, which can be extracted from (8) at each
operating frequency, and substituted in (4) to calculate
(8)
The measured and simulated (FastHenry-2) values of
for
direct and cross-couplings between power and data coils are
shown in Fig. 10, while is changed from 10 to 30 mm [36].
It can be seen that there is a very good agreement between simand
. Coupling between
ulated and measured values of
, is strong at
mm equal to 0.228 and
the power coils,
and
values are opti0.15 for sets 1 and 2, respectively. If
mized for maximum power efficiency, it can be concluded from
can be achieved for
mm. Also as
[30] that
for the smallest transexpected, there is a sharper drop in
mitter coil (Set-1) than the largest one (Set-2). While the largest
transmitter sends the EM power deeper into the tissue.
Fig. 7(c) shows that in order to achieve minimum cross-coupling, all coils should be symmetrical and axially aligned. However, reaching close symmetries in handmade coils is difficult.
It is possible through to compensate some of the effects of these
asymmetries with intentional misalignments to practically min. Therefore, we adjusted the height of the receiver coil
imize
to experimentally find the Y-axis misalignment at which
was minimal. Fig. 10(c) shows
versus vertical misalignment

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMSI: REGULAR PAPERS, VOL. 54, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2007

Fig. 11. Measured direct and cross-coupling coefficients between set-3 power
and data coils in Table II, all on a semi-logarithmic scale.

for Set-2 with minimum achieved at

mm, which follows the same trend as Fig. 7(c) simulation. With these adjusted
values
heights, Fig. 10(d) compares simulated and measured
is very
for sets 1 and 2. In these measurements, the fact that
small within the best accuracy of our manual measurement setup
has resulted in some discrepancies between simulated and measured values. Nevertheless, the measurement and simulation results are in the same range.
To make comparison between coupling coefficients easier,
Fig. 11 shows the results of measured direct and cross-coupling
coefficients between Set-3 power and data coils in Table II, all
on a semi-logarithmic scale. The main point to be made here is
that as a result of adopting the novel coil configuration of Fig. 5,
, in Fig. 10(d) and
the undesired data-power cross-coupling,
11 are at least one order of magnitude smaller than the desired
, in Figs. 10(b) and 11. This can
direct data coils coupling,
significantly help in reducing power carrier interference with
the received data signal on the implant side, especially when
combined with frequency separation of data and power carriers,
frequency selective nature of the LC tank circuits, and high-pass
filtering of the received data carrier.
B. Power and Forward Data Transfer Measurements

Fig. 10. Measured and simulated values of coupling coefficient between

(a) power coils, k and (b) data coils, k in sets 1 and 2. (c) Y-axis misalignment between coils to find minimum cross-coupling for set-2 (d) measured and
simulated values of cross-coupling coefficient k between transmitter power
coil L and receiver data coil L .

In order to demonstrate simultaneous power and data transmission using the multicarrier wireless link, we modified and
used the power and data transmission/reception circuitry that
we had previously developed for an implantable wireless microstimulating system (Interestim-2B) [11]. In this experiment
we used coil Set-3, shown in Fig. 8 and specified in Table II,
mm. Interestim-2B (IS-2B) was originally designed
at
to operate with a single FSK carrier at 5 and 10 MHz. Therefore, we had to disable the on-chip power supply and amplify
the received data carrier using an off-chip comparator. IS-2B
was used in this test basically as an FSK data demodulator and
since the demodulator was not specifically designed for a multicarrier setting, the results of this experiment are not representative of the highest bandwidth that can be achieved using multiple carrier wireless links. They can however, demonstrate the
feasibility and advantages of utilizing multiple carriers in high
performance implantable device applications.

GHOVANLOO AND ATLURI: WIDE-BAND POWER-EFFICIENT INDUCTIVE WIRELESS LINK FOR IMDS

2219

and
across the data transmitter output. In this experiment, we used an Agilent 33250A function generator with
50 output impedance and maximum modulation rate of 100
kHz to generate the FSK data carrier. Since we had already debased on coils geometrical considerations, described
signed
in Section III, other and values of the FSK transmitter in
Fig. 12(a) were chosen based on the equations derived in [15].
or
could be used as
in Fig. 1.
Either
FSK data carrier with a peak to peak voltage of 10 V at the
transmitter output was applied to the series-parallel LC tank
was chosen
combination while the parallel tank circuit
to transmit the data, as shown in Fig. 12(a). The received data
carrier should theoretically have the same amplitude at both
and
frequencies if the tank circuits are perfectly
tuned. However, due to nonidealities it was being slightly amplitude modulated as can be seen on the 2nd trace from top in
Fig. 12(b). The amount of power carrier interference on the received data carrier without any high-pass filtering was about
25 mV, which can be tolerated by the FSK demodulator. It can
also be easily removed using a high-pass filter with cutoff frequency around 2 MHz. The major cause of this interference is
the asymmetry resulting from coil construction and vertical misalignments, which can be reduced by more accurate coil fabrication or better alignment methods. The top trace in Fig. 12(b)
shows the recovered serial data bit stream at the output of the
IS-2B FSK demodulator at 200 kb/s.
C. Back Telemetry Link
Fig. 12. (a) Power and forward data transmission measurement setup
(b) sample measured waveforms showing from bottom to top: the received
power carrier at 500 kHz, rectified and regulated 5-V dc from the power
carrier, received data carrier at 5/10 MHz, and recovered data.

On the transmitter side, a high efficiency class-E power amkHz, drove

from a dc supply
plifier, tuned at
[37][39]. In order to reach
V, as shown
had to be increased
on the third trace from top in Fig. 12(b),
to 10 V. In this condition 81 mA was being consumed by the
class-E, resulting in a total input power of 810 mW. Meanwhile
was tuned at
with a parallel capacon the receiver side,
and connected to a fast full-wave rectifier. The rectifier
itor
was followed by a low dropout regulator, which converted the
with peak to peak amplitude of 8
received power carrier,
V as shown on the lower trace in Fig. 12(b), to a 5-V regulated
. The regulator was loaded with
dc voltage
and
as well as IS-2B chip and the comparator as
shown Fig. 12(a). The power delivered to the comparator and
IS-2B in this condition was measured 125 mW, while another
. The result was an overall
117 mW was being dissipated in
power transmission efficiency of
from the external
dc supply to the regulated power supply on the implant.
Data was transmitted using pc-FSK technique described in
[15]. Logic values 1 and 0 were transmitted using
MHz and
MHz, respectively. To provide a wideband low-Q bandpass spectrum across the inductive data link
without using dissipative components, a combination of series
and parallel LC tank circuits were used to generate zeros at

The feasibility, design, and construction of a microwave range

high frequency back telemetry link have already been demonstrated by Gosalia et al. in [23] and [35]. The size of the imin Fig. 1 ( 6 mm), is well
plantable planar patch antenna,
within the size of the implant and coils discussed in earlier sections and it can be added at the center or on the side of the power
coils, shown in Fig. 5. If the implantable device is packaged in
can be either ema nonconductive material such as ceramic,
bedded in the package or designed within one metal layer of the
implant printed circuit board without resulting in a significant
increase in the implant size.
VI. CONCLUSION
A new approach for efficient power and wide-band data transmission through a wireless link to high performance IMDs, such
as cochlear implants and visual prostheses, has been presented
using multiple carrier signals. Two pairs of coils and a pair of
MHz highpatch antennas utilize a low-frequency
V carrier for power transmission, a
amplitude
MHz medium-amplimedium-frequency
V carrier for forward data transmission
tude
from the external sensor to the implant, and a high-frequency
MHz low-amplitude
V carrier for back
telemetry from the implant to the external part of the system.
Separation of these functions helps the designer to optimize various aspects of the link for a specific application regardless of
the other constraints.
Coupling coefficients between coils with various geometries
are modeled and design guidelines are deducted regarding how

2220

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMSI: REGULAR PAPERS, VOL. 54, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2007

to maximize or minimize them. Adoption of novel coil geometries and orientations have resulted in increasing the desired direct coupling within power or data coil pairs, while decreasing
undesired cross-coupling between the pairs to reduce interference between power and data carriers. Simulation and modeling
results using coil analysis software as well as measurement results using small handmade coils indicate the feasibility and
functionality of this approach for simultaneous data and power
transmission using multiple carrier signals.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the members of the NC
Bionics Lab, Dr. G. Lazzi, and his group for their help in
conducting some of the measurements.
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GHOVANLOO AND ATLURI: WIDE-BAND POWER-EFFICIENT INDUCTIVE WIRELESS LINK FOR IMDS

Maysam Ghovanloo (S00M04) was born in

1973. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran,
in 1994, and the M.S. (Hons.) degree in biomedical
engineering from the Amirkabir University of
Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1997; and the M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2003 and
2004, respectively.
His Ph.D. research related to developing a wireless
microsystem for micromachined neural stimulating
microprobes. In December 1998, he founded Sabz-Negar Rayaneh Co. Ltd.,
Tehran, Iran, to manufacture physiology and pharmacology research laboratory
instruments. In the summer of 2002, he was with the Advanced Bionics Corporation, Sylmar, CA, designing spinal-cord stimulators. From 2004 to 2007,
he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering,North Carolina State University, Raleigh, where he founded and
directed the NC Bionics Laboratory. In June 2007, he joined the faculty of the
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, where he is an Assistant Professor
in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has more than
40 conference and journal publications.
Dr. Ghovanloo has received awards in the operational category of the 40th
and 41st DAC/ISSCC student design contest in 2003 and 2004, respectively. He
has served as a technical reviewer for major IEEE and IoP journals in the areas
of solid-state circuits, systems, and biomedical engineering. He is a member of
Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, and IEEE Solid-State Circuits, Circuits and Systems,
and Engineering in Medicine and Biology societies.

2221

Suresh Atluri (S05M07) was born in India, in

1983. He received the B.S. degree in electrical and
electronics engineering from BITS, Pilani, India, in
2004 and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering
from the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, in
2006 specializing in analog, digital, and microwave
circuit design.
His research was oriented towards developing
inductive power and data transfer circuits for
implantable biomedical devices. He joined the Integrated Device Technologies Incorporated in Atlanta,
GA, in 2006, where he works as an Electronics Design Engineer.