In Vivo Wireless Monitoring System of Cardiovascular Force Data

Biotelemetry provides the possibility to measure physiological data in awake, free-ranging animals without the effects of anesthesia and repeated surgery. In this project a fully implantable, telemetric system to measure biomechanical force data of the moving structures of the heart along with the ECG of experimental animals was developed. The system is based on a microcontroller with a built in bidirectional radio frequency transceiver, which allows for the implant to both receive and send data wirelessly. ECG was acquired using electrodes placed directly onto the heart, and the forces were collected using a miniature force transducer. The system was tested in a porcine model (60 kg body weight), where the system transmitted ECG and force data at a range of 5 m between the implant and the receiver. The data was displayed and saved to the hard drive of a laptop computer using a custom built software user interface. It was shown feasible to wirelessly measure forces simultaneously with physiological data from the cardiovascular system of living animals. The current system was optimized to measure forces and ECG, and more channels can be added to increase the number of parameters recorded.