Design of Tunable Ultrasonic Receivers for Efficient Powering of Implantable Medical Devices With Reconfigurable Power Loads

Miniaturized ultrasonic receivers are designed for efficient powering of implantable medical devices with reconfigurable power loads. Design parameters that affect the efficiency of these receivers under highly variable load conditions, including piezoelectric material, geometry, and operation frequency, are investigated. Measurements were performed to characterize electrical impedance and acoustic-to-electrical efficiency of ultrasonic receivers for off-resonance operation. Finally, we propose, analyze, and demonstrate adaptive matching and frequency tuning techniques using two different reconfigurable matching networks for typical implant loads from 10 mu W to 1 mW. Both simulations and measurements show a significant increase in total implant efficiency (up to 50 percentage points) over this load power range when operating off-resonance with the proposed matching networks.