Antennas and Wireless Power Transfer for Brain-Implantable Sensors

The major challenge in developing a wireless brain implant is to establish a stable and efficient trans-cranial wireless link with an integrated implantable antenna. This chapter discusses the challenges in developing the intracranial implantable antennas and compares different techniques for wireless power transfer in the presence of human body tissues. It provides a summary of the most recent miniature implantable antennas and inductive power transfer systems for implantable applications. Next, the chapter compares the merits of different methodologies to build the computational head models for implantable antenna development. A comparison of the human head models with different complexity is provided. Then, the chapter discusses the development and the performance of a wirelessly powered intracranial pressure sensing system integrating near-and far-field antennas in the human head environment. Two far-field radio-frequency identification antennas for intracranial wireless communication are demonstrated and evaluated. Finally, the chapter discusses the antenna performance and the tuning parameters through a parametric analysis.