Impedance matching in electrosurgery

Abstract

Systems and methods for performing impedance matching to enhance surgical outcomes in an electrosurgical system are described. An impedance matching network is interposed along a path of RF energy and matches dynamically an output impedance of an electrosurgical generator to an input impedance of the tissue load by varying the inductance of a resonant cell. As a result, an adjustment is made to the output phase of the electrosurgical generator to ensure an optimal matching of the source and load impedances based on sealing, fusing or cutting cycle of the tissue. This leads to a resonance condition which provides a zero-degrees phase shift between the RF output voltage and current of the electrosurgical generator. The inductance of the resonant cell is proportional to either the magnitude of the current flowing through DC windings of a saturable core reactor or on the size of an airgap in the inductor core material.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.