Improving human life quality, increasing life expectancy, and the consequent enhancement in the aging population have always been of extensive concern in medical communities.
In this context, recent advancements in wireless communication techniques and medical technologies have led to considerable research on biomedical telemetry systems.
These systems establish wireless communications between implantable medical devices (IMDs) and wearable/off-body nodes enabling continuous remote monitoring of patients’ vitals and collecting their physiological data to manage their medical conditions.
A compact and efficient implanted antenna integrated into IMDs is indispensable in setting up this long-term bidirectional communication link. Several challenges should be addressed in implanted antenna design, including miniaturization, satisfactory radiation efficiency, proper impedance matching, broad bandwidth, and biocompatibility.
Moreover, there is an increasing demand for versatile, multi-band/modal implanted antennas for modern medical wireless communications systems.
As a result, implanted antennas that provide data transmission, wireless power transferring, and control signaling at multiple operating frequency bands have become a significant trend in the research.
Nikta Pournoori’s doctoral thesis focuses on designing, developing, and evaluating multi-band implantable antennas for multitasking wireless brain implants. In comparison with the state-of-the-art implantable antennas, the proposed implanted antennas exhibit superiority in antenna structure, size-performance ratio, and antenna radiation characteristics for brain implant communications in lossy human tissues.
“I believe the proposed design solutions can open up new opportunities in developing implantable antennas for wireless and batteryless brain implants and help to pave the way for the realization of multifunctional biotelemetry systems for the next generation of human healthcare”, Pournoori explains.
The doctoral dissertation of MSc (Tech) Nikta Pournoori in the field of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering titled Antenna Development in Brain-Implantable Biotelemetric Systems for Next-Generation of Human Healthcare will be publicly examined at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology at Tampere University at 12.00 on Friday 13.1.2023 in Sähkötalo building auditorium S2, address: Korkeakoulunkatu 3. The Opponent will be Professor Anja K. Skrivervik from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. The Custos will be Professor Leena Ukkonen from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology at Tampere University.
The dissertation is available online.
Photo: Kayvan Pournoori