Antenna Design and Optimization

 

PatternNumerous medical devices are implanted in the body for medical use. These include pacemakers and defibrillators, hormone pumps, nerve stimulators, and more. With the advancement and miniaturization of bio-electronics it is likely that the array of implantable medical devices will continue to expand in the years to come. Medical implants are intended to stay in the body for many years or decades, and it is often necessary to communicate with the device to download data about the health of the device or its batteries or the health of the patient, or to upload changes in settings or new procedures specified by the doctor. It is even conceivable that the patient could control the setting of his or her medical implant with the touch of a button from a wireless device.

 

The design of antennas that can communicate with implantable devices is an interesting and challenging problem. The antenna must be small and long-term biocompatible, preferably able to be mounted on existing implant hardware or to utilize part of the hardware itself. The antenna must be electrically insulated from the body so as not to short out and be ineffective, and it must be efficient so as not to excessively drain the batteries. It must not exceed the safety guidelines for power deposited in the body, and should be insensitive to external EM noise. Some applications (such as data up or down load) could use a high-gain directional system, whereas other applications (such as monitoring while the patient is mobile and active) would require a more isotropic system. For some cases (such as nerve stimulators) it is possible that the implanted antenna for communication could also be used for sensing the electrical properties of the tissue in the surrounding region, which might be used to provide biologically-relevant information about the health of the patient.

 

Antennas 009Antennas 008Some of the most successful designs have been the spiral, serpentine, or genetic-algorithm waffle-type designs.

 

Other applications of the genetic algorithm antenna design software are multi-band designs (such as the one shown top left), broad band designs, or antennas for specialty applications.

 

 

 

 

Thank you to our Sponsors:

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Overviews

(INVITED PAPER) C.Furse, A Survey of Phased Arrays for Medical Applications, ACES Journal, Special Issue on Phased Arrays , Vol. 21, No.3, Nov 2006, pp.365-379

O.P. Gandhi, C.M.Furse, G. Lazzi, Monopole Antennas , Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, John Webster, editor, 2000; Reprinted in Wiley Encyclopedia of RF and Microwave Engineering, 2003, Vol 4, pp. 3238-3244

C.M.Furse, O.P. Gandhi, G. Lazzi, Dipole Antennas , Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, John Webster, editor, 2000, 2006 (online); Reprinted in Wiley Encyclopedia of RF and Microwave Engineering, 2003, Vol 2, pp. 1047-1052

C.M. Furse, G. Lazzi, O.P. Gandhi, Dipole, Monopole and Loop Antennas, Modern Antennas, Constantine Balanis, editor, 2006

C.M.Furse, Antennas for Medical Applications, Antenna Engineering Handbook, John Volakis, editor, 2006

 

Implantable Antennas for Medical Applications

M. Rodriguez, R. Franklin, C. Furse, Manufacturing Considerations for Implantable Antennas, 2013 IEEE AP-S International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and 2012 USNC/CNC/URSI Meeting in Lake Buena Vista, FLA, July 7-12, 2013

C.Furse, Design of an Antenna for Pacemaker Communication, Microwaves and RF, March 2000, p. 73-76

Pichitpong Soontornpipit, Cynthia M. Furse and You Chung Chung, Miniaturized Biocompatible Microstrip Antenna using Genetic Algorithm, IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 53, No. 6, June 2005, pp. 1939-1945

 

P. Soontornpipit, C.M. Furse, and Y.C. Chung , “Design of Implantable Microstrip Antenna for Communication with Medical Implants,” Special Issue of IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques on Medical Applications and Biological Effects of RF/Microwaves , Vol. 52, No. 8 Part 2, Sept. 2004, pp. 1944-1951

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nano-Crescent Antennas

Miguel Rodriguez, Cynthia Furse, Jennifer Shumaker-Parry, Steve Blair, Scaling the Response of Nano-Crescents into the Ultraviolet, ACS Photonics, 1 (6), pp 496-506, 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transparent Antennas

IMG_0117b

J. Saberin, C. Furse, Challenges with Optically Transparent Patch Antennas, Invited paper IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 53. No. 3 pp. 10-16 and No. 4 pp. 118-119, March 2012

 

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3D Printed Antennas

B. Willis, C. Furse, A Look at the Future of Printed Antennas,2012 IEEE AP-S International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and 2012 USNC/CNC/URSI Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, July 8-14, 2012

 

Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO)

Chamber_1meter_C

Sai Ananthanarayanan P.R., Alyssa Magleby Richards, Cynthia Furse, Measurement and Modeling of Multi-user Multi-antenna system in aircraft in the presence of electromagnetic noise and interference, Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Volume 53, Issue 5, pages 1137-1144, May 2011

 

Sai Ananthanarayanan P.R., Alyssa Magleby Richards, Cynthia Furse, Measurement and modeling of Multi-Antenna Systems in Small Aircraft, Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communication, June 2011, Vol. 8: 170-182.

 

Sai Ananthanarayanan P.R., Alyssa Magleby, James R. Nagel, Cynthia Furse, Measurement and modeling of Interference for multiple antenna system, Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Vol. 51, No. 9, pp. 2031-2037, June 2010

 

(invited paper) J. Nagel, A. Magleby, S. Ananthanarayanan, C. Furse, Measured Multi-User MIMO Capacity in Aircraft, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, 52(4), Aug 2010, 179-184

 

D. Landon, C. Furse, MIMO Capacity Dependence on Realistic Cross-Polarization and Branch-Power-Ratios, Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Vol 50, No. 5, May 2008, pp. 1384-1388

David G. Landon, Cynthia M. Furse, Recovering handset diversity and MIMO capacity with polarization-agile antennas, IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Volume 55, Issue 11, Part 2, Nov. 2007 Page(s):3333-3340

 

MRI Coil Design

IMG_2354

J.Rock Hadley, C.Furse, D. Parker, RF coil design using a genetic algorithm, ACES Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, July 2007, pp. 277-286

 

 

 

 

 

 

Down-Borehole Loops for Geophysical Imaging

D.Johnson, C.Furse, A.Tripp, FDTD Modeling and Validation of EM Survey Tools, Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Sept. 20, 2002

D.Johnson, E.Cherkaev, C.Furse, A.Tripp, Cross-Borehole Delineation of a Conductive Ore Deposit -- Experimental Design, Geophysics, May/June 2001

D.Johnson, C.Furse, A.Tripp, PML for FDTD Modeling of a Conductive Ore Deposit in a Lossy Dielectric, Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Vol. 25, No.4, May 20, 2000, pp. 253-255

C.M. Furse, D.M. Johnson, A.C. Tripp, Application of the FDTD Method to Geophysical Simulations, Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Newsletter, March 1999

BroadBand and MultiBand Designs

L. Griffiths, C. Furse, Broadband and multi-band antenna design using the genetic algorithm to create amorphous shapes using ellipses, IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Volume 54, Issue 10, Oct. 2006 Page(s):2776 - 2782

Soil Moisture Antenna

Pichitpong Soontornpipit, Cynthia M. Furse, You Chung Chung, and Bryan M. Lin, Optimization of a Buried Microstrip Antenna for Simultaneous Communication and Sensing of Soil Moisture, IEEE Trans. AP Special Issue on Antenna Applications, Volume 54, Issue 3, March 2006 Page(s):797 - 800

Antennas in Plasma

J. Ward, C. Swenson,C.Furse, The Impedance of a Short Dipole Antenna in a Magnetized Plasma via a FDTD model, IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol 53, No8, Aug 2005, pp. 2711-2718