Design Article
Aerospace research yields heartbeat-powered pacemaker
Anne-Francoise Pele
11/23/2012 11:26 AM EST
PARIS – Aerospace engineers said they are developing a device that can harvest the energy of human heart to power pacemakers.
Researchers from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan claimed that they have designed a device that harvests energy from the reverberation of heartbeats through the chest and converts it to electricity to run a pacemaker or an implanted defibrillator. These mini-medical machines send electrical signals to the heart to keep it beating in a healthy rhythm.
Dan Inman, Department chair of Aerospace Engineering, said: "Medical costs are really high, and pacemaker-dependent people have to have an operation every seven years. If the patient is 2 years old, that's perhaps ten times in their lifetime to have open-heart surgery."
Inman continued: "We created a device that harvests energy inside the body and can be used to run a pacemaker instead of relying on battery replacements, which occur every seven to ten years."
No prototype has been built yet, but researchers claimed that they "made detailed blueprints and run simulations" that prove the feasibility of the idea. The design includes a hundredth-of-an-inch thin slice of a piezoelectric ceramic material would move with heartbeat vibrations and convert the energy into electrical energy.
Researchers said they have engineered the ceramic layer to a shape that can harvest vibrations across a broad range of frequencies. In addition the design includes integrated magnets used to increase the electric signal that results from the vibrations.
The power generated by the energy harvester would be more than 10 times the power required by the pacemaker, researchers claimed and proves that piezoelectric energy harvesters can be used to continuously power pacemakers and relegate batteries to an emergency back up function.
Originally, the harvester had been designed for light unmanned airplanes where it could generate power from wing vibrations.
Early findings have been presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2012.
Click on image to view a video.
See related links:
Toward pacemakers powered by heartbeats
Wolfe's Den: Maxim's Heartbeat T-Shirt
The potential of energy harvesting means there’s nothing to lose
Streamlining the design of portable medical electronics
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Kevin N
11/25/2012 12:19 AM EST
I don't know much about pacemakers, but I thought that a lot of them now had an inductive loop so you could charge the battery through the skin.
When I was young I saw, in a museum, a nuclear-powered pacemaker. I guess they were used before battery technology improved. The power source lasted quite a while. I'm not sure how it worked, exactly. I think nuclear batteries normally generate heat and use thermocouples to create electricity, but I don't know if that's how these worked.
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Paul Wassmund
11/28/2012 3:45 PM EST
Just to address a minor point, open heart surgery is not required to implant a pacemaker or defibrillator. The device itself is placed under the skin via a small incision, and the leads are passed through veins into the heart via catheters. Pacemakers implants are sometimes performed on an outpatient basis, and defibrillators typically involve just an overnight stay.
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MarkFromNJ
11/30/2012 8:05 PM EST
"No need for 10 open heart surgeries over a lifetime!"
It makes great VC roadshow slideware, but there is not much connection with reality.
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