PVDF Energy Harvester for Prolonging the Battery Life of Cardiac Pacemakers

Abstract

Patients who have an implantable cardiac pacemaker that survive beyond the operational life of the device require replacement surgeries that increase healthcare costs and may possibly introduce post-operative complications such as infection. In this paper, we propose a piezoelectric energy harvester design for powering pacemakers to extend their operational life. The design uses a thin strip of piezoelectric PVDF that captures energy from bending of the lead wire. We assemble a prototype to validate a finite element model, and then use the finite element model to characterize the power output of the design based on a cantilever beam loading condition, where displacement at the cantilever tip simulated heart motion. The voltage output from the prototype was compared to the output from the finite element simulation and the finite element simulation provided a good estimate of the voltage output. Further finite element analysis showed that for a 10 cm long section of the proposed design, a 9.1 mm tip displacement provided a power output of 1 μW and a voltage output of ±1.4 V during each cycle.