Towards flexible wireless charging for medical implants using distributed antenna system

Xiaoran Fan, Longfei Shangguan, Richard Howard, Yanyong Zhang, Yao Peng, Jie Xiong, Yunfei Ma, Xiang Yang Li

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper presents the design, implementation and evaluation of In-N-Out, a software-hardware solution for far-field wireless power transfer. In-N-Out can continuously charge a medical implant residing in deep tissues at near-optimal beamforming power, even when the implant moves around inside the human body. To accomplish this, we exploit the unique energy ball pattern of distributed antenna array and devise a backscatter-assisted beamforming algorithm that can concentrate RF energy on a tiny spot surrounding the medical implant. Meanwhile, the power levels on other body parts stay in low level, reducing the risk of overheating. We proto-type In-N-Out on 21 software-defined radios and a printed circuit board (PCB). Extensive experiments demonstrate that In-N-Out achieves 0.37 mW average charging power inside a 10 cm-thick pork belly, which is sufficient to wirelessly power a range of commercial medical devices. Our head-to-head comparison with the state-of-the-art approach shows that In-N-Out achieves 5.4X-18.1X power gain when the implant is stationary, and 5.3X-7.4X power gain when the implant is in motion.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 26th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, MobiCom 2020
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages280-294
Number of pages15
ISBN (Electronic)9781450370851
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 16 2020
Event26th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, MobiCom 2020 - London, United Kingdom
Duration: Sep 21 2020Sep 25 2020

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, MOBICOM

Conference

Conference26th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, MobiCom 2020
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period9/21/209/25/20

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Software

Keywords

  • backscatter
  • distributed beam-forming
  • medical implants
  • wireless charging

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