Background: Signal transmission characteristics between implanted medical devices and external equipment has been a common key issue, as has the problem of supplying energy to the devices. It can be used to enable signal transmission from implanted devices that the human body's conductive properties. Using signal transmission by galvanic coupling is one of the most effective signal transmission methods.
Methods: The signal transmission characteristics by galvanic coupling of implantable devices using a frequency range of 10 kHz to 1 MHz was analyzed in this article. A finite element (FEM) model and a phantom model established by visible human leg data were used to investigate the signal transmission characteristics of implant-to-surface, with implantable receiver electrodes at different locations.
Results: The results showed that the FEM model and the phantom model had similar implantable signal transmission characteristics, with an increase of frequency, signal attenuation basically remained unchanged. The gain in signal attenuation in the fixed attenuation values fluctuated no more than 5 dB and signal attenuation values rose as the channel length increased.
Conclusions: Our results of signal transmission characteristics of surface-to-implant will provide a theoretical basis for implantable transceiver design, and for realization of a recharging method for implanted medical devices.
Keywords: Channel modeling; Finite element model; Implantable signal transmission; Phantom model.