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Coming soon: A pacemaker with no battery
Tuesday September 04, 2012 05:20:37 PM,
IANS
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London:
An implantable pacemaker as tiny as a pinhead is set to
revolutionise medicine with its big advantage. It is powered by
radio waves from outside the body and does not need batteries.
The breakthrough by Stanford University engineers could lead to a
host of new medical sensors that could function without batteries.
The implanted device is housed in a cube less than a millimetre in
radius.
Millions of pacemakers, cochlear implants and drug pumps are today
helping people live relatively normal lives, but these devices are
not without engineering challenges. First off, they require power,
which means batteries. And batteries are bulky, the journal
"Applied Physics Letters" reports.
In a pacemaker or a similar device, the battery alone accounts for
as much as half the volume of the device it powers. Second,
batteries have limited lives. New surgery is needed when they are
spent, according to the "Daily Mail".
"Wireless power solves both challenges," said Ada Poon, professor
of electrical engineering at Stanford, who led the research. Last
year, Poon made headlines when she demonstrated a wirelessly
powered, self-propelled device capable of swimming through the
bloodstream.
Beyond the heart, they believe such devices might include
swallowable endoscopes-so-called "pillcams" that travel the
digestive tract, permanent pacemakers and precision brain
stimulators. The new device could power virtually any medical
application where size and power matter.
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