Enhancing wireless power transfer efficiency for potential use in cardiovascular applications

Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVAD) are being used to assist blood circulation in heart failure patients. The requirement to have a continuous energy supply is deteriorating the patients’ life quality since they need either to carry along two heavy battery packs or to attach a power cable. For this reason, a wireless power transmission (WPT) system is developed to power the LVAD. Within its effective charging region, the WPT system will offer an autonomous charging process which may lead to a smaller battery pack and cableless experience to the user. Previous WPT systems for cardiovascular applications are either compromised by poor transfer efficiency, short transmission distance or safety issues. To address these problems, an impedance matching WPT system is being designed. For increasing the overall transfer efficiency, both sides impedance matching technique and low loss matching networks are being worked on. In addition, efficiency specific design approach is being developed to reduce design complexity. As a result, the transfer efficiency and transmission distance of the impedance matched WPT have been increased by a factor of 7 and 6 times respectively. The conceptual idea for implementing such a system is also discussed in this thesis. Furthermore, safety measurements have been performed to ensure the system is safe to be used

Télémétrie capacitive pour des dispositifs implantables

RÉSUMÉ Ce travail vise à concevoir un système de transfert de données bidirectionnel et capacitif. Une introduction couvrant l'histoire des liens de communication dédiés aux implants médicaux est tout d’abord présentée. Ensuite, nous développons une revue de la littérature des télémétries de données qui se basent sur l'approche capacitive ainsi que celles basées sur la modulation de changement de charge. Deux systèmes de transfert de données à base capacitive sont présentés : le premier est unidirectionnel et se base sur la modulation de la position spatiale de la porteuse. Le second est bidirectionnel et utilise une modulation spatiale de la position du pulse pour la liaison descendante et la modulation par déplacement de charge pour la liaison ascendante. Le premier système a été testé sur un cuir chevelu de mouton et a atteint un débit de 20 Mb/s en utilisant des composants discrets. Le système a été modélisé sur COMSOL afin de comprendre le comportement du champ électrique dans ce type de tissu. Les défis du premier système ont été réglés par la conception du deuxième système. Les contributions apportées ont résolu les limitations suivantes : le problème de différence de masse sur l’émetteur et le récepteur, la grande taille des plaques nécessaire pour obtenir une capacité d'isolation valide et finalement l’ajustement automatique du seuil de détection du récepteur en ajoutant une cinquième plaque commune. Une analyse détaillée des paramètres qui affectent le rapport signal sur bruit pour la liaison descendante (de la partir externe du système vers l’implant) est réalisée avec un modèle électrique correspondant à la peau de la joue humaine. La capacité est calculée en utilisant les variables paramétriques du système. La modulation sur la liaison ascendante est analysée en mettant en évidence les compromis nécessaires sur la liaison descendante. Un débit de 10 Mb/s est réalisé sur la liaison ascendante et un débit de 20 Mb/s sur la liaison descendante. Finalement, nous proposons une nouvelle modulation qui utilise le complément de la SPPM et permet une augmentation de 50 % dans le débit binaire en ajoutant un bit aux deux bits transmis par impulsion formant des codes à 3 bits chacun.----------ABSTRACT This work aims to design a bidirectional capacitive data link. An introduction covering the history of communication links used for medical implants is introduced along with a literature review covering the data telemetries using the capacitive approach and some of the other types of telemetries using load shift keying modulation. Two capacitive based telemetry systems are presented; the first is a unidirectional using spatial carrier position modulation and the second is a bidirectional transceiver using spatial pulse position modulation for the downlink and load shift keying for the uplink. The first system achieved a data rate of 20 Mb/s experimentally using discrete components, four plate geometry and sheep head skin. COMSOL modeling has been implanted to understand the behavior of the electric field in this type of tissue. The challenges of the first system were sorted by the design of the second transceiver which solved the different ground on the transmitter and the receiver, the big plate size required to achieve a valid insulation capacitance and most importantly the autonomy of the receiver detection threshold by adding a fifth common plate. A detailed analysis of the parameters that affect the signal to noise ratio for the downlink is made along with an electrical model that fits the human cheek skin. The capacity is computed using the parametric variables of the system. Load shift keying system analysis is done while highlighting the tradeoffs required for implementing on the uplink along with the downlink. A data rate of 10 Mb/s is achieved on the uplink and a 20 Mb/s on the downlink. A new modulation is implemented that uses the complement of the SPPM and allows a 50% increase in the bit-rate by adding a bit to the two transmitted bits per pulse for a total of three

Sistemi di alimentazione per pacemaker

Dopo una panoramica sulle generalità dei pacemaker, vengono spiegati la struttura e il funzionamento degli stessi. Vengono, poi, illustrati i possibili sistemi di alimentazione per pacemaker, focalizzando l'attenzione sui sistemi TET (funzionamento, architettura e perdite di potenza

Smoking and Second Hand Smoking in Adolescents with Chronic Kidney Disease: A Report from the Chronic Kidney Disease in Children (CKiD) Cohort Study

The goal of this study was to determine the prevalence of smoking and second hand smoking [SHS] in adolescents with CKD and their relationship to baseline parameters at enrollment in the CKiD, observational cohort study of 600 children (aged 1-16 yrs) with Schwartz estimated GFR of 30-90 ml/min/1.73m2. 239 adolescents had self-report survey data on smoking and SHS exposure: 21 [9%] subjects had “ever” smoked a cigarette. Among them, 4 were current and 17 were former smokers. Hypertension was more prevalent in those that had “ever” smoked a cigarette (42%) compared to non-smokers (9%), p\u3c0.01. Among 218 non-smokers, 130 (59%) were male, 142 (65%) were Caucasian; 60 (28%) reported SHS exposure compared to 158 (72%) with no exposure. Non-smoker adolescents with SHS exposure were compared to those without SHS exposure. There was no racial, age, or gender differences between both groups. Baseline creatinine, diastolic hypertension, C reactive protein, lipid profile, GFR and hemoglobin were not statistically different. Significantly higher protein to creatinine ratio (0.90 vs. 0.53, p\u3c0.01) was observed in those exposed to SHS compared to those not exposed. Exposed adolescents were heavier than non-exposed adolescents (85th percentile vs. 55th percentile for BMI, p\u3c 0.01). Uncontrolled casual systolic hypertension was twice as prevalent among those exposed to SHS (16%) compared to those not exposed to SHS (7%), though the difference was not statistically significant (p= 0.07). Adjusted multivariate regression analysis [OR (95% CI)] showed that increased protein to creatinine ratio [1.34 (1.03, 1.75)] and higher BMI [1.14 (1.02, 1.29)] were independently associated with exposure to SHS among non-smoker adolescents. These results reveal that among adolescents with CKD, cigarette use is low and SHS is highly prevalent. The association of smoking with hypertension and SHS with increased proteinuria suggests a possible role of these factors in CKD progression and cardiovascular outcomes