Energy Harvesting Techniques for Implanted Biosensors

Jacopo Olivo, Integrated Systems Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland

Abstract: Power autonomy is a key challenge for implanted biosensors, influencing their performance and invasivity: some of the most popular energy harvesting techniques for such devices are summarized, listing for each one the strong suits and the possible drawbacks, the specific application fields and the potentialities. In particular, energy harvesting through microwave-frequencies inductive link has been investigated, performing full-wave simulations, analyzing the results and comparing them with the ones reported in the literature.

About the speaker: Jacopo Olivo received the M.Sc. in electrical engineering from University of Bologna (Italy) in 2008. He approached the biosensors field during his master project, concerning the realization of an integrable system for electrochemical measurements in point-of-care applications for personalized medicine. Starting from September 2009, he is a research assistant and a doctoral candidate in the Integrated Systems Laboratory at the EPFL. His actual research interest is focused on energy scavenging techniques for implantable biosensors.