Ultra-Low Power Wakeup Radios In Medical Implant Communications

By P.D. Bradley and Reghu Rajan

Medical devices are increasingly incorporating wireless functionality to support new monitoring, diagnostic, and therapeutic applications that are improving patient care and lowering healthcare costs. Implantable medical devices often utilize wireless communication systems to support home-based patient remote monitoring, operating room device programming, and other features. These wireless devices have significant power constraints, due to their small size and the requirement to operate off small batteries for long periods of time. This paper will examine some of the requirements of such wireless implantable medical devices, the need for low power wakeup radios to support them, and a comparison of candidate technology.