Approximate Expressions to the Reactive Near-Field Losses of Body-Implanted Antennas

TL;DR

This paper develops approximate formulas to estimate reactive near-field losses of body-implanted antennas, considering factors like depth, size, and medium properties, aiding in better antenna design for bioelectronics.

Contribution

It introduces new approximate expressions for near-field losses of implanted antennas that account for implantation depth and biological media, validated through comparisons with rigorous models.

Findings

Expressions match rigorous computations for spherical and planar phantoms.

The formulas assist in designing more efficient implantable antennas.

Practical application demonstrated with a capsule-shaped antenna.

Abstract

Implantable bioelectronics often relies on an RF-wireless link for communication and/or remote powering. Propagation through biological media is very lossy, and previous work has shown that these losses can be separated into three parts: the losses incurred by the propagating fields, the reflections at media interfaces, and the coupling of the reactive near field and the lossy body. The first two are unavoidable, but a clever antenna design can minimize the near-field losses. A good physical understanding of this particular loss phenomenon is thus very desirable. Unfortunately, previous work does not take the implantation depth into account and is thus valid only for deep implants. In this contribution, we propose approximate expressions to the near field losses of antennas implanted in biological hosts considering the encapsulation size, the frequency, the characteristics of the host medium, and the implantation depth. They are obtained using a spherical wave expansion, and are useful for realistic implantation scenarios. This is demonstrated by first comparing the results obtained using these expressions with rigorous computations for two canonical phantoms: a spherical phantom and a planar phantom. Finally, the usefulness of the obtained expressions is illustrated in the practical realization of a capsule-shaped implanted antenna.