Most implants like pacemakers and insulin pumps work in isolation. To help them coordinate with each other, a team of Georgia Tech researchers built a networking system that sends signals through body tissue instead of antennas and radio waves. Implants that communicate today mostly rely on radio protocols like Bluetooth Low Energy or near-field communication (NFC).
Both are a poor fit for in-body data transfer, says Alex Abramson, a Georgia Tech engineer and co-author of the new study. The first problem is power. According to the paper, Bluetooth components, when they’re activated, can cut an implant’s battery life by up to 90 percent.
The second problem is that radio waves don’t travel well through the body. He said that implant-to-implant radio communication systems run into attenuation issues if the signal has to travel more than one centimeter through the tissue. Radio needs antennas, and commercial Bluetooth components require a device at least five millimeters wide.
Implants thinner than three millimeters can be injected with a syringe at an outpatient clinic; bigger ones usually need surgery. The fix Abramson’s team came up is called SWANS (Smart Wireless Autonomous Networking System) and was inspired by the way body’s own internal communication networks. And our system mimics that,” Abramson said.
SWANS relies on ionic conduction just like neurons, which communicate by shuttling sodium and potassium ions through their membranes, creating voltage differences.
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