Project of a transcutaneous energy transmitter to supply power to ventricular auxiliary device

Abstract

This project studies a Transcutaneous Energy Transmitter (TET) which uses electromagnetic fields to transfer power from outside the body to an artificial organ in the body. It works like a high frequency transformer whereas the skin is part of the magnetic coupling between the primary (external coil) and secondary (internal coil). Thus, the external coil (transmitter) is excited by an oscillation circuit that transforms the continuous voltage to high frequency alternated voltage and transfers energy to a secondary internal (receiver) containing a coil associated with a rectifier circuit followed by amplifiers and regulators to supply power to the artificial organ and an internal rechargeable battery. In this work, a series of settings TET is studied using the Finite Element Method to simulate the load power, and energy absorption rate (SAR) and induced current in the skin. The collected data is used by the kriging method to create a model, which is used by multiobjective genetic algorithm (MGA) to optimize performance, regulation and SAR. The optimized data is again simulated by Finite Element Method to ensure that the SAR and induced current are within the limits allowed by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). (AU)