History and Future of Implantable Antennas

Dr. Cynthia Furse
University of Utah, USA

Abstract: Implantable antennas have been used for communication with medical implants for decades. Since then, wireless medical telemetry systems and their associated implantable antennas have expanded rapidly. Implantable medical devices now touch virtually every major function in the human body. Cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators, neural recording and stimulation devices, cochlear and retinal implants are just a few of the many implantable medical devices available today. Wireless telemetry for these devices is necessary to monitor battery level and device health, upload reprogramming for device function, and download data for patient monitoring. Emerging medical telemetry devices have led to recent advances in the design of small, bio-compatible antennas that can be implanted in the human body. This talk will track the types of antennas seen in the past, the technologies that enabled these changes, and prospects for future implantable antennas for medical applications.

Speaker’s Bio: Dr. Cynthia M. Furse is a Fellow of the IEEE and the National Academy of Inventors, and is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Her research interests are the application of electromagnetics to sensing and communication in complex lossy scattering media such as the human body, geophysical prospecting, ionospheric plasma, and complex wiring networks. Dr. Furse is a founder of LiveWire Innovation, Inc., a spin-off company from her research, commercializing devices to locate intermittent faults on live wires. She has taught electromagnetics, wireless communication, computational electromagnetics, microwave engineering, antenna design, introductory electrical engineering, and engineering entrepreneurship and has been a leader in the development of the flipped classroom. Dr. Furse is an Associate Editor for the Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (AP), a member of the IEEE AP Young Professionals Committee, a past Administrative Committee member for the IEEE AP society, and past chair of the IEEE AP Education Committee. She has received numerous teaching and research awards including the 2020 IEEE Chen To Tai Distinguished Educator Award.

This webinar is organized by IEEE MTT-SCV and it is open to everyone.