Lay summary
Artificial hearts are new medical devices for the treatment of heart failure. These pumps currently use a bulky cable passing through the skin to obtain power and this is a major cause of infection. Our project will develop a means to send power across an air/skin gap wirelessly to eliminate the infections. We will work with one of the leading artificial organ companies. We will address the electronic design, encapsulation of the device, ergonomics and undertake animal trials to prove the viability of the system. We will also develop methods that will allow the implanted device to mimic the natural heart better. The success of this project will lead to a dramatic improvement in heart pump adoption providing better clinical outcomes for treatment of heart failure. It will also produce a solid technology platform for providing power to a diverse array of next generation smart implantable devices.