Enhancing wireless power transfer efficiency for potential use in cardiovascular applications

Abstract

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.