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3rd December 2008

Cambridge Consultants predicts significant growth in wireless implantable antenna devices

• Implantable medical device market predicted to expand as enhanced patient monitoring, condition control and therapy applications emerge in the MICS band

The increasing availability of new compact, low power wireless medical technologies will enable a new generation of human implantable medical monitoring and patient care devices using the Medical Implant Communication Service (MICS) radio frequency band, according to Cambridge Consultants.  Designers of personal, self-contained medical devices for blood pressure and metabolite monitoring and control, new drug delivery tools or neuro-stimulation technology are moving toward wireless devices that can be implanted into the human body for constant, yet unobtrusive care.

One of the challenges of these new wireless devices is designing a suitable antenna that can operate within the often complex RF environment of the human body where fat, muscle and skin tissue create challenging wireless signal conditions.  Cambridge Consultants, a design and development company with strong track record in medical device design, recently enhanced the capability of their Implantable Antenna Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to design and test MICS band antennas for just such implantable devices.

The medical and wireless system development engineers at Cambridge Consultants have access to a range of state of the art equipment to enable them to design and develop implantable antenna for a range of MICS-enabled applications, including a ‘phantom’ - a model of the human body with the RF characteristics of biological tissue used to simulate and test conditions for implanted medical devices. 

Ian Mawhinney, a Vice President at Cambridge Consultants explains: “Innovative approaches to the shape and size of an implantable antenna can provide improved and consistent-read coverage for a monitoring or drug delivering device, and can dramatically improve performance and battery life.”  A recent demonstration by the company showed a seven-fold improvement in power consumption, potentially extending the use of an implantable device by a significant margin.

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