The charge push-through electronics design for fully implantable artificial cochlea powered by energy harvesting technologies

Abstract

An implant of artificial cochlea is the only way how to recover lost hearing in some cases. Fully implantable artificial cochlea in comparison with recent approaches including partially implantable devices is proposed and discussed in this work. The proposed implant consists of subcircuits which are designed in close context to reach optimal performance and the lowest power consumption. Power consumption of the device is decreased to a value which allows designing the device as a zero-powered system using energy harvesting. A combination of micro-mechanized diaphragm filter bank, energy harvesting power source and especially ultra-low power processing electronics is presented in this article. A new technique of output signal generation for nerve stimulation is described. This new technique named charge push-through uses the major part of energy generated by energy harvesting subcircuit for output useful signal generation with minimal undesirable current. Thermal and mechanical parts were investigated using complex electro-mechanical simulations. The real energy harvesting power source (human motion, temperature) was experimentally measured. Signal processing circuits powered by energy harvesting power source were designed and simulated. The new signal processing circuits were simulated in relation to the results of complex electro mechanical diaphragm and SPICE energy harvesting power source simulation.