1, FEBRUARY 2009
23
Manuscript received December 19, 2007; revised June 16, 2008. First
published January 21, 2009; current version published January 28, 2009. This
work was supported in part by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council under
grant PolyU 5306/06E. This paper was recommended by Associate Editor R.
Sarpeshkar.
Q. Chen was with the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering,
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. She is now with the College of
Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
Nanjing 210016, China.
S. C. Wong and C. K. Tse are with the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong (e-mail:
enscwong@polyu.edu.hk; encktse@polyu.edu.hk).
X. Ruan is with the College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University
of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China, and also with the College of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Huazhong University of Science
and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TBCAS.2008.2006492
I. INTRODUCTION
DVANCES in biomedical technology allow artificial organs and monitoring devices to be implanted into human
body for the extension and improvement of human lives [1].
The implants must operate inside the body for a considerable
period of time and communicate with the outside world wirelessly for exchange of medical data and commands. Among different forms of power sources, chemical rechargeable batteries
are by far the safest and most popular form of power for implants. Rechargeable batteries are recharged remotely through
the human skin via inductive links.
Totally implantable systems minimize the risk of infection
and improve patients mobility. Reliable and safe methods of
providing power to the implants are the key factors in achieving
totally implantable systems. Inductive link technology is
widely used for powering different kinds of implants [2][6].
Air-core type transformers have been used and studied in
[2][5], [7][10] and in particular the work in [2], [3], [6], [8],
employed class E power converters for low power applications
and for achieving space saving. For higher power applications,
such as powering an artificial heart for a power level of 1060
W, magnetic cores are used [11][23]. The input power to a
biological heart is approximately 15 W at resting condition,
and 35 W under heavy exercise [18]. Equivalent load resistance
ranging from 9.6 to 48 is therefore expected for a converter
that gives an output voltage of 24 V. To compensate for the
large leakage inductances due to transcutaneous separation, a
resonant type converter of class D has been used [10], [14],
[18], [21], [22], [24]. Four combinations of stagger-tuned
link circuits have been proposed in [24] for compensating
the leakage inductances of the transcutaneous transformer.
Frequency modulation at frequencies between the two resonant
frequencies of the doubly tuned tank circuits has been used to
achieve coupling insensitive gain control. More detailed studies
in using resonant converter for compensating the leakage inductances have been conducted by Cho et al. [18], [21], [22]. Out of
the four stagger-tuned link circuits, the voltage-in-current-out
link in [24] has been found to have the lowest circulating
current and thus is the most efficient link circuit when operating
at frequencies near and above the second resonant frequency
of the doubly tunned circuit. However, their studies employed
frequency modulation at frequencies much higher than the
second resonant frequency of the doubly tunned circuit with
a wide frequency range for controlling the converter at a less
than ideal output-to-input voltage transfer ratio of 0.45 [18]
and could not fully demonstrate an effective control method for
output voltage regulation under varying transformer coupling
coefficient, input voltage and load.
24
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS, VOL. 3, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2009
(1)
. As indicated
and the turns ratio of the transformer is
in Table I, all inductance values change with , i.e., air gap or
and
misalignment length. Normally, external capacitances
are added to form resonant tanks with the transformer inductances [18]. The frequencies of resonant tanks are thus varying
with changing .
TABLE I
TRANSCUTANEOUS TRANSFORMER PARAMETERS
(2)
(3)
(4)
25
TABLE IV
POWER COMPONENTS USED IN THE TRANSCUTANEOUS CONVERTER
TABLE II
PERCENTAGE CHANGE OF INDUCTANCE RATIO WHEN CHANGING k
TABLE III
DESIGN SPECIFICATION OF THE TRANSCUTANEOUS CONVERTER
where
(5)
(6)
The input-to-output voltage transfer function is determined from
(4) as
(7)
where
(8)
It can be readily seen from (7) that if
, then
is independent of
. Solving for roots of (8), we obtain the frequencies
is independent of
at which
(9)
(10)
Fig. 5. Phase angle between the primary inductance current and the driving
voltage when using the proposed PWM and PLL control.
(11)
(12)
where
26
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS, VOL. 3, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2009
is given as
(13)
It has been shown [18] that if the two leakage inductances can
be compensated using external capacitances satisfying
, then
and
are the two
roots of
and
in (7). However, the compensation
technique can only be optimized at one particular at which
holds. When changes,
and
the equality
change as well, making
deviating from .
27
Fig. 11. Output voltage transient response of the transcutaneous regulator under a step change of load. (a) From min to full load at k
; (c) from min to full load at k ; (d) from full to min load at k .
at k
(15)
as an additional constraint in compensating the leakage inductances. In doing so, using the approximations
Then, we have
(24)
(16)
(25)
(26)
(17)
(18)
Equations (25) and (26) are useful for evaluating the capacitor
voltage stresses when deciding on the choice of .
(19)
(20)
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS, VOL. 3, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2009
Fig. 12. Output voltage transient response of the transcutaneous regulator at full load under a step change of input voltage V . (a) V
V
65 V at k ; (c) V
65 V at k
; (d) V
65 V at k .
= 40
= 35
= 35
= 4065 V at k
; (b)
(29)
where
is the duty cycle of the PWM control. The input-tooutput voltage gain is modified to
(30)
where the PLL circuitry will find a frequency satisfying (27).
in (7) can be obtained for calculating
in
Thus,
for
(30). Fig. 6 shows the the relation between and
and
at different loading conditions.
Fig. 7 shows a block diagram of the control circuitry, implementing the PWM and PLL control of transcutaneous power
converter. The implementation details are explained as follows.
is sensed using a current transformer.
The inductor current
In the current sensing transformer secondary, the amplitude
is also obtained by a peak-tracking circuitry.
and
are compared using
Scaled down amplitudes
the LM311 shown in Fig. 7 to produce a square waveform
which leads
by a phase angle
which is adjusted by .
is extracted as
using the logic circuit
The phase angle of
CD4081 from two of the gate control signals produced by the
PWM controller UCC3895. The phases of and are fed for
comparison into the PLL controller CD4046 whose frequency
output overrides the switching frequency of UCC3895 after
synchronous pulse conversion using CD4528. When the phases
and the phase relationship given in
are locked,
Fig. 5 is achieved. A detailed circuitry of the PLL is given in
29
= 30
= 45
Fig. 8.
and
define the frequency range
while
and
define the lowest switching frequency
of the system. The compensation of the PLL is controlled by
,
and . In practice, we use
,
and
. The switching frequency is initially set at
during start-up to ensure successful phase locking. The
compensation circuit of the voltage error amplifier of UCC3895
in Fig. 7 is redrawn in Fig. 9, where the component values
are chosen for fastest output voltage transient response, i.e.,
,
and
. However, as
in actual implementation, the voltage is sampling via some
wireless link, slower-response compensation circuit should
,
be used. We find that using component values
and
, the circuit can still be stable
with much slower transient response for the worst case of slow
wireless voltage feedback links.
= 60
B. Experimental Evaluations
A prototype of the proposed transcutaneous power regulator
has been constructed according to the circuit shown in Fig. 2
and control circuit described in Fig. 7. A photo of the prototype is shown in Fig. 10. The measured transient responses of
the transcutaneous power regulator when the load, input voltage
and coupling coefficient undergo step changes are, respectively,
shown in Figs. 1113. The measured efficiency of the regulator
V,
V and
V are
at full load,
given in Figs. 1417, respectively. The input power (excluding
= 30 V
30
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS, VOL. 3, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2009
Agilent 34401A digital multimeters. The loss mechanism is further studied experimentally by measuring the power input to
primary and power output from the secondary of the transcutaneous transformer. The waveforms of the voltages and currents on both transformer primary and secondary are measured
for one switching cycle using a digital storage oscilloscope. The
efficiency curve of the transformer is calculated and shown as
the upper curve in Fig. 18 for different loads. The middle curve
in Fig. 18 shows the converter efficiency including the loss of
the transcutaneous transformer and estimated conduction loss
of MOS switches and output rectifying diodes. The lower refer, which
ence curve is the measured converter efficiency at
is also shown previously in Fig. 15.
V. CONCLUSION
The design of a transcutaneous power regulator for artificial
hearts has been studied in this paper. The key challenge is the
varying transformer coupling that makes control difficult for
achieving output voltage regulation under varying load and the
constraints of frequency modulation. It has been shown in this
paper that it is possible to operate the regulator at a locked frequency by proper design and appropriate compensation of the
inductances, leading to tight output regulation with optimized
efficiency under varying transformer coupling. Compensation
methods have been studied in the frequency domain and applied to a capacitor compensated transcutaneous transformer
power converter. Based on the results of the analysis, a new
control method using both PWM and phase locking control has
been proposed. The power regulator has been evaluated for step
changes in the input voltage, output load and transformer gap
length. Results showing excellent transient response and efficiency have been obtained.
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31
Award for Achievement in Research, the Facultys Best Researcher Award, the
Research Grant Achievement Award and a few other teaching awards. From
1999 to 2001, he served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS PART IFUNDAMENTAL THEORY AND APPLICATIONS,
and since 1999 he has been an Associate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON POWER ELECTRONICS In 2005, he served as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer.
Presently he also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Circuits and Systems
Society Newsletter, Associate Editor for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS
AND SYSTEMS PART IREGULAR PAPERS, International Journal of Systems Science, IEEE CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS MAGAZINE, and International Journal of
Circuit Theory and Applications, and Guest Editor of a few other journals.