Practical Inductive Link Design for Biomedical Wireless Power Transfer: A Tutorial

Wireless power transfer systems, particularly those based on inductive coupling, provide an increasingly attractive method to safely deliver power to biomedical implants. Although there exists a large body of literature describing the design of inductive links, it generally focuses on single aspects of the design process. There is a variety of approaches, some analytic, some numerical, each with benefits and drawbacks. As a result, undertaking a link design can be a difficult task, particularly for a newcomer to the subject. This tutorial paper reviews and collects the methods and equations that are required to design an inductive link for biomedical wireless power transfer, with a focus on practicality. It introduces and explains the published methods and principles relevant to all aspects of inductive link design, such that no specific prior knowledge of inductive link design is required. These methods are also combined into a software package (the Coupled Coil Configurator), to further simplify the design process. This software is demonstrated with a design example, to serve as a practical illustration.