Characterization of off-the-shelf hardware for transcutaneous power and data transmission

There are many applications in biomedicine in which transcutaneous transmission of information and/or power is necessary. Typically, a custom-made receiver/transmitter pair must be designed and built to meet specific design requirements. This paper describes the testing and characterization of off-the-shelf hardware to perform these functions. The increasing ubiquity of RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) and energy harvesting applications has lead to a concomitant increase in the availability of hardware and software to support them. In this paper the communication and power transfer capabilities of an inexpensive (<;200) RF evaluation kit from Texas Instruments are explored. The kit includes both a transmitter/base station and a small (2 cm by 3 cm) board with a receiving coil, RFID decoder and microcontroller. Communication is possible at distances up to 6.5cm (depending on the location and orientation of the receiver relative to transmitter) and power transmission up to 0.5 mW is achieved at distances as far as 1 cm.