Compact Antenna With Broadband Wireless Biotelemetry for Future Leadless Pacemakers

This paper introduces a miniaturized implantable antenna designed to achieve ultra-wide bandwidth for next-generation leadless cardiac pacemakers (LCPs). A broad bandwidth is essential for mitigating detuning challenges and enhancing channel capacity to enable advanced features in LCPs. This antenna, with a volume of 9.44 mm³, achieves a bandwidth of 3.39 GHz and a fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 138%. The antenna covers various frequency bands from 0.76 to 4.15 GHz, including ISM (0.869, 0.915, and 2.45 GHz), WMTS (1.4 GHz), and midfield (1.6 GHz) bands. Antenna simulations conducted within a homogeneous phantom (HP) of heart tissue show gains of -32.4, -27.94, and -19.8 dBi at 0.915 GHz, 1.4 GHz, and 2.45 GHz, respectively. The proposed antenna exhibits low Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) levels within a full body model (FBM), achieving values of less than 1.6 W/kg and 2.0 W/kg for 1 g and 10 g of tissue, respectively. Furthermore, an analysis of the link budget is performed to calculate the telemetry range for a 10 Mbps data rate. The fabricated prototype is measured in minced pork meat, showing a good match with the simulation results.