Antenna systems for implantable medical device telemetry
AssigneeCardiac Pacemakers, Inc.
InventorsJeffrey A. Von Arx, Prashant Rawat, William R. Mass
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An implantable medical device system includes an implanted device communicating with an external device via telemetry. The implanted device and the external device each have a telemetry module connected to an antenna system to support a radio-frequency (RF) telemetry link. The antenna system of the external device has a manually or automatically controllable directionality. The controllable directionality is achieved, for example, by using two or more directional antennas, one non-directional antenna and one or more directional antennas, or an electronically steerable phased-array directional antenna.
Claims46
A system for communicating with an implantable medical device, the system comprising:
- an external device adapted to be communicatively coupled to the implantable medical device via radio-frequency (RF) telemetry, the external device comprising:
- a transceiver;
- an antenna system comprising at least two antennas each having a predetermined directionality characteristic;
- an antenna interface circuit coupled between the transceiver and the antenna system;
- and
- a directionality controller coupled to the antenna interface circuit, the directionality controller adapted to control a directionality of the antenna system.
A method for communicating with an implantable medical device via radio-frequency (RF) telemetry, the method comprising:
- receiving one or more RF signals from the implantable medical device using one or more antennas of an antenna system, the one or more antennas each having a predetermined directionality characteristic;
- analyzing a quality of each of the one or more RF signals;
- and
- controlling a directionality of the antenna system based on an outcome of the analyzing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.