Conductive Backscatter Communication for Dual-Chamber Leadless Pacemakers
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version
Date
2022Metadata
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Original version
IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques. 2022, 70 (4), 2442-2450. 10.1109/TMTT.2022.3147978Abstract
Dual-chamber and multichamber leadless pacemakers (PMs) are emerging solutions for reducing the limitations of conventional wire-based PMs. One of the main challenges in migrating to leadless PMs is having reliable and low-power data telemetry among the PMs inside the heart chambers. Backscatter communication is a solution for battery-constrained data links and can be applied for the implants using specific designs. In this article, we propose one-way backscatter communication based on conductive coupling for leadless PMs. The implant capsules can communicate with an on-body device without having any active transmitter. The complexity and power consumption are shifted to the remote on-body reader. Dual-chamber PM communication is enabled by using the subcarrier technique for discriminating the devices in the frequency domain. A low data rate of about 11 kb/s is assigned to each PM capsule to communicate its vital information to the reader. The proposed system is designed and realized using off-the-shelf electronic components. The whole system is evaluated in an in vivo experiment. Results indicate the potential of using conductive backscatter for wireless communication in leadless PMs.