A Dual Band Wireless Power and Data Telemetry for Retinal Prosthesis

Inductive coupling is commonly used for wireless power and data transfer in biomedical telemetry systems. The increasing demand on the performance of medical devices requires high data rate and high power efficiency at the same time. If only one radio frequency carrier is used, it is difficult to achieve both high data rate and high power efficiency due to the competing requirements on carrier frequency and system-Q of the power and data transmission. We propose a dual band telemetry system to implement power and data transmission using different frequencies by allocating lower frequency for power transmission and higher frequency for data transmission. However, the magnetic coupling between the power carrier and data carrier will affect the operation of both links. In this paper, this interference is analyzed and design equations are derived, which are used to design coils to maximize the data signal level received at the implant side. A prototype of dual band telemetry for a retinal prosthetic device has been built and experimental results show that both power and data can be transmitted and high data rate can be achieved without compromising the power transmission efficiency.