Charging and updating of an implantable hearing aid
AssigneeOticon Medical A/S
InventorsBradford Backus, Régis Pierquin
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An implantable hearing aid system is disclosed. According to one or more of the mentioned aspects, the implantable hearing aid system comprises a charger unit which includes a coil unit having a first resonance frequency, a hearing aid and an implantable component. The hearing aid includes a rechargeable battery, an inductive coil arrangement having a second resonance frequency configured to form an inductive charging link with the coil unit to receive power signals from the charger unit. The implantable component includes an implantable coil, wherein the inductive coil arrangement may further be configured to form a transcutaneous link with the implantable coil to transmit at least one of data and power to the implantable component.
Claims17
An implantable hearing aid system, comprising:
- a charger unit including a coil unit having a first resonance frequency,
- a hearing aid, including:
- a rechargeable battery,
- an inductive coil arrangement having a second resonance frequency configured to form an inductive charging link with the coil unit to receive power signals from the charger unit,
- a voltage decreasing converter configured to decrease a voltage of the power signals received from the charger unit for use in charging the rechargeable battery, and
- a voltage increasing converter configured to increase a voltage of signals obtained from the rechargeable battery, and
- an implantable component including an implantable coil, wherein the inductive coil arrangement is further configured to form a transcutaneous link with the implantable coil to transmit at least one of data and power to the implantable component, and wherein the first resonance frequency and the second resonance frequency are substantially the same and within a frequency range of between 80 kHz to 300 kHz,
- wherein the hearing aid further comprises a capacitive circuit arrangement configured to adjust the resonance frequency of the inductive coil arrangement to a plurality of resonance frequencies including at least the second resonance frequency via a respective tuning circuit, and
- wherein the signals obtained from the rechargeable battery, whose voltage is increased by the voltage increasing converter, are used for transmission of the at least one of data and power to the implantable component via the inductive coil arrangement and the transcutaneous link.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.