Miniaturized Human Insertable Cardiac Monitoring System with Wireless Power Transmission Technique

Abstract

Prolonged monitoring is more likely to diagnose atrial fibrillation accurately than intermittent or short-term monitoring. In this study, an implantable electrocardiograph (ECG) sensor to monitor atrial fibrillation patients in real time was developed. The implantable sensor is composed of a micro controller unit, an analog-to-digital converter, a signal transmitter, an antenna, and two electrodes. The sensor detects ECG signals from the two electrodes and transmits these to an external receiver carried by the patient. Because the sensor continuously transmits signals, its battery consumption rate is extremely high; therefore, the sensor includes a wireless power transmission module that allows it to charge wirelessly from an external power source. The integrated sensor has the approximate dimensions 3 mm × 4 mm × 14 mm, which is small enough to be inserted into a patient without the need for major surgery. The signal and power transmission data sampling rate and frequency of the unit are 300 samples/s and 430 Hz, respectively. To validate the developed sensor, experiments were conducted on small animals.