Low-Loss Wireless Implant Telemetry Using Magnetoinductive Waveguides

We introduce a novel wireless implant telemetry system that utilizes magnetoinductive waveguides (MIW) to break state-of-the-art boundaries in terms of: (a) transmission loss, and (b) bandwidth. Magnetoinductive waveguides rely on the careful design of a series of resonant loops, where excited current on the transmit loop leads to the current propagating as magnetoinductive waves to the receive loop. A MedRadio (401–406 MHz) MIW is shown to communicate with a $49.3 mm^{3}$ implant at 1 cm depth with a transmission loss of only 19.4 dB and a bandwidth of 187.4 MHz. This represents an improvement of over 30 dB and 85 MHz over a similar Radio-Frequency (RF) based system. Notably, the reported MIW framework empowers a full wearable system that can be integrated into clothing to handle wireless nodes placed both on and inside the human body.