Image Credit: Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems
Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems developed a magnetically-coupled motor/generator system that they claim is able to transcutaneously transfer 100 mW to an implant up to 50 cm away.
In the external power-transfer module, a rotating magnet driven by an EC motor generates a magnetic rotary field. A magnetic pellet in the implanted receiver connects to the alternating exterior magnetic field and as a result, is set in rotation itself. The rotational movement is transformed into electricity, thus the power is produced right in the generator module. “With magnetic coupling, power can be transported through all non-magnetic materials, such as biological tissue, bones, organs, water, plastic or even a variety of metals. Moreover, the magnetic field produced has no harmful side effects on humans. It doesn‘t even heat up tissue,” says Dr. Holger Lausch, highlighting the advantages of the system. Continue reading
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We conduct reliability analyses for our implantable devices on a continued basis. I’ve spent the last few days readying the data for this period’s analysis, and thought that a short primer on how this is actually done would be of interest to fellow engineers who may need it at some point.