An Investigation of Body-Coupled Power Transfer for Multiple Implants

The distributed neural interface demonstrates significant potential for effective disease treatments, where the power supply is a critical challenge to be addressed. The body-coupled power transfer (BCP) emerges as a flexible and efficient solution that allows electrode misalignment and supports longer transmission distances. However, the use of BCP to power fully implantable multiple implants has not been sufficiently explored. This paper utilizes electromagnetic simulations and practical experiments to observe the inter-effect of multi-nodes on their respective path gain. Two types of BCP (galvanic coupling and capacitive coupling) are studied, and their performance is compared across three implanted nodes. The results demonstrate that BCP can effectively power multiple implanted receivers with minimal mutual interference, which provides essential insights for its implementation in distributed neural interfaces.