Second International Symposium on Intelligent Information Technology Application

Intelligent Pillow Type Wireless Charger for Fully Implantable Middle Ear
Hearing Device with a Function of Electromagnetic Emission Reduction

Hyung-Gyu Lim1, Dong-Wook Kim1, Myoung-Won Lee1, Jang-Woo Lee1, Sang-Hyo Woo1,
Min-Woo Kim1, Eui-Sung Jung1, Ki-Woong Seong1, Jyung-Hyun Lee2, and Jin-Ho Cho1,3
1
Graduate School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
Kyungpook National University, Daegu, 702-701, Republic of Korea
2
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Kyungpook National University Hospital, Daegu, 700-721, Republic of Korea
3
Advanced Research Center for Recovery of Human Sensibility,
Kyungpook National University, Daegu, 700-422, Republic of Korea
baksan@ee.knu.ac.kr and jhcho@ee.knu.ac.kr

Abstract (F-IMEHDs), an implantable rechargeable battery is

Recently, implantable middle ear hearing devices have
been developed as full implant by several countries for
hearing impaired people. These devices will be surgically
implanted in human temporal bone, a rechargeable
battery is employed for long-term implant. To charge the
battery, a pillow type wireless charger using electro-
magnetic coupling has been developed in South Korea. In
the previous device, several primary coils are used, which
can surround head considering head’s movement in sleep.
However, this device should unnecessarily consume
power to drive the uncoupled primary coil. Especially,
users must expose themselves to electromagnetic field
generated from all primary coils during the charge
process. In order to solve these problems, an intelligent
pillow type wireless charger, which can recognize the
implanted coil’s position using hall effect sensors and
which can drive the only primary coil among primary
coil’s array, has been proposed to reduce potential risks
from the electromagnetic field emission.
1. Introduction
At modern times, a lot of implantable medical devices
have been studied according to miniaturization of many
electronic components. And implantable hearing devices
like cochlear implants or implantable middle ear hearing
devices (IMEHDs) have been remarked by many scientists,
medical doctors, and hearing impaired people that can
overcome disadvantages of conventional hearing aids [1-3].
Among these devices, IMEHDs have been developed as
fully surgical implant for hearing impaired people that has
hearing loss from moderate to severe [4-5]. For long-term
implant of fully implantable middle ear hearing devices
generally embedded in this device. In general, the
electromagnetic coupling between a primary coil and a
secondary coil and LC resonance are used for efficient
power transmission into implantable medical devices [6-8].
According to this tendency, a F-IMEHD and a wireless
charger has been developed as a portable type in South
Korea [9]. The other type wireless charger has been
implemented as a pillow type, which can charge with
considering user’s head movement in sleep [10-11]. This
device includes several primary coils that can surround
head sufficiently. However, the structure of pillow type
wireless charger may bring on large power consumption
because all primary coils must always operate to charge
the battery. Simultaneously, users may expose themselves
to electromagnetic field which is generated from each coil
unnecessarily. Moreover, because potential risks due to
electromagnetic field haven’t been found out perfectly, the
strength of electromagnetic field and the exposure time
need to be regulated at the wireless charger. In order to
reduce the electromagnetic flux emission from all primary
coils, an intelligent pillow type wireless charger, which
can operate the only primary coil after recognizing the
location of F-IMEHD, has been proposed. The proposed
device’s feasibility will be confirmed in this paper.
2. Fully implantable middle ear hearing
device in South Korea
All over the world, implantable hearing devices have
been studied to overcome disadvantages of conventional
hearing aids, such as howling effect due to acoustic
feedback, social discriminations about hearing impaired
people, and cosmetic problems. In South Korea, a kind of
F-IMEHD has been developed since 2002, which can be

978-0-7695-3497-8/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE 835

DOI 10.1109/IITA.2008.491

Secondary coil
Permanent magnet
System body
Ossicles
Vibration transducer
Implantable microphone Cochlea
Figure 1. The schematic of fully implantable middle ear hearing
device in South Korea
Implantable microphone System body
Permanent magnet
10 mm
Vibration transducer Secondary coil
Figure 2. The developed fully implantable middle ear hearing
device in South Korea
surgically implanted at human temporal bone as Figure 1.
This device includes an implantable microphone, the
system body with a signal processor, and a vibration
transducer. Hearing impaired people can hear the clear
sound, because vibration output of this device directly
stimulates ossicles or cochlear entrance.
The latest version of F-IMEHD is shown as Figure 2.
For long-term implant of the F-IMEHD, an implantable
rechargeable battery and a secondary coil, which can
charge the battery and can communicate with a remote
controller, are also embedded in the device. A permanent
magnet is located at the center of secondary coil to align
with a primary coil.
3. The previous pillow type wireless charger
In order to charge the F-IMEHD, a pillow type wireless
charger has been implemented. Figure 3 represents block
diagram and prototype of this device. Fundamentally, the
implemented device can charge the implantable battery
using electromagnetic coupling and LC resonance at 152
kHz. And the previous device has 5 primary coils that can
surround a head to charge the implanted battery regardless
of a head’s movement in sleep. This device can charge
within 40 mm of distance between the primary coil and the
836
Out of the body (wireless charger) Skin In the body (F-IMEHD)
Vcc 5 primary coils
Rectifier
152 kHz H-bridged
coil driver
Charger
Secondary coil
Pulse Micro- Implantable
generator controller battery
Figure 3. The developed pillow type wireless charger with 5
primary coils in South Korea; block diagram and prototype
secondary coil.
However, because this device must drive all primary
coils to charge the battery, this method has disadvantages
that users should be unnecessarily exposed themselves to
strong electromagnetic field (5 times) during the charge
process and that the device may excessively consume the
power because of driving all primary coils. Especially,
electromagnetic flux emission from primary coils must be
reduced because their risks haven’t been verified perfectly.
Therefore, an intelligent pillow type wireless charger has
been proposed to charge the implantable battery, which
can activate the only primary coil among primary coils
after recognizing the location of secondary coil in F-
IMEHD. In this paper, this method’s feasibilities will be
verified.
4. Intelligent pillow type wireless charger
As mentioned above, to prevent users from potential
hazards due to excessive electromagnetic exposure, a new
method for the pillow type wireless charger has been
proposed. Using hall effect sensors and a permanent
magnet (NdFeB) in F-IMEHD, this method will be able to
implemented to recognize the location of secondary coil.
Figure 4 is the block diagram of intelligent pillow type
wireless charger with the function which can operate the
only primary coil according to the location of secondary
coil with a permanent magnet. To be more particular, the
proposed wireless charger includes primary coil’s array
and a hall effect sensor located at the center of every
primary coil. When the permanent magnet of secondary
coil approaches a hall effect sensor within its sensing
distance, the only primary coil can be activated among
primary coil’s array. Thus, the proposed device will be
 Primary coil’s array
H-bridged Secondary coil
Switch array Hall
coil driver in F-IMEHD
effect
sensors
Pulse Processor Permanent
magnet
generator & controller
Intelligent pillow type wireless charger
Figure 4. The block diagram of intelligent pillow type wireless
charger which can operate the only primary coil among primary
coil’s array after recognizing the location of secondary coil
able to charge the implantable battery, wherever the
secondary coil moves according to head’s movement in
sleep, without unnecessary emission of electromagnetic
field. Additionally, excessive power consumption cannot
be happened because the necessary primary coil is
powered only. At next heading, basic experiments are
carried out to confirm the feasibility of proposed method.
5. Experimental results
For achievement of our purposes, a bipolar linear hall
effect sensor (A1362, Allegro) can be selected because of
its excellent sensitivity [12]. To confirm the proposed
method’s feasibilities, several experiments are carried out
using the hall effect sensor and a permanent magnet
(NdFeB) for the F-IMEHD.
First of all, the output voltages of hall effect sensor are
measured in free space varying distance between the
permanent magnet and the hall effect sensor after the
permanent magnet is aligned with the hall effect sensor.
This procedure is repeated several times. At that time, we
thought that the hall effect sensor will be actually affected
by electromagnetic field generated from the primary coil
because the hall effect sensor is located the center of
primary coil. Therefore, the hall effect sensor’s output is
measured in electromagnetic field generated by the
primary coil after experimental environments are set up as
Figure 5. This measurement is also performed several
times for the reliability of results. In the same manner,
these experiments are executed about the other polarity of
permanent magnet.
Figure 6 represents the results about two kinds of
measurements. Because this bipolar hall effect sensor
operates at the half of supply voltage without a external
magnet (the supply voltage: 5 V), the graph represents two
tendencies according to the polarity of permanent magnet.
837
Permanent magnet Primary coil
Hall effect sensor
Figure 5. Experimental setup for measurement of the hall effect
sensor’s characteristics
3.4
Outputs by north pole of the magnet
Hall effect sensor's output voltage (V)
3.2
3.0 Outputs by south pole of the magnet
2.8
2.6
2.4 Voltage by south pole in free space (1st measurment)
Voltage by south pole in free space (2nd measurment)
2.2 Voltage by south pole with a coil (1st measurement)
Voltage by south pole with a coil (2nd measurement)
2.0 Voltage by north pole in free space (1st measurent)
Voltage by north pole in free space (2nd measurent)
1.8 Voltage by north pole with a coil (1st measurement)
Voltage by north pole with a coil (2nd measurement)
1.6
10 20 30 40 50 60
Distance between hall effect sensor and permanent magnet (mm)
Figure 6. Measurements of the hall effect sensor’s output voltage
according to varying distance between the hall effect sensor and
the permanent magnet
According to these results, it is verified that the hall effect
sensor can operate in electromagnetic field generated from
the primary coil with characteristics which are similar to
the free space results. At the distance between 30 mm and
40 mm, the hall effect sensor can recognize the permanent
magnet independent of the polarity of magnet. If a few
signal processing methods such as noise cancellation and
amplification are added, the effective distance of hall
effect sensor will be able to be enhanced.
6. Conclusions
The previous pillow type wireless charger has been
implemented with 5 primary coils using electromagnetic
coupling and LC resonance to charge the implantable
battery of F-IMEHD. However, this device needed to
drive all primary coils for charging regardless of head’s
movement in sleep. At that time, user should be needlessly
exposed to relatively strong electromagnetic field and their
power consumption may be very large.
In this paper, an intelligent pillow type wireless charger
with the function, which can reduce the emitted electro-
magnetic field from all primary coils after recognizing the
position of secondary coil with a permanent magnet, has
been proposed to improve the defects of previous device.
To confirm this device’s feasibilities, several experiments
were performed with a hall effect sensor and a permanent
magnet. As the results, it is verified that the hall effect
sensor can certainly detect the permanent magnet’s
location.
Consequently, it is predicted that the proposed method
will be capable of activating the desired primary coil only
among the primary coil’s array after detecting the position
of secondary coil. Moreover, the efficient distance, which
can detect the secondary coil, will be enhanced using
signal processing and amplification. Hereafter, additional
experiments must be carried out according to angle
between the hall effect sensor and the permanent magnet
because the hall effect sensor aligns exactly with the
permanent magnet in this paper. And studies need to be
also performed about optimal design of primary coil’s
array or its boundary condition. If these researches are
finished in the future, it will be expected that the proposed
intelligent pillow type wireless charger can prevent user
from unnecessary electromagnetic field during the charge
process of F-IMEHD and this device is also able to reduce
power consumption.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by a grant of the Korea
Health 21 R&D Project, Ministry of Health & Welfare,
Republic of Korea (A020610) and this work was
supported by the Brain Korea 21 Project.
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[10] Hyung-Gyu Lim, Min-Kyu Kim, Young-Ho Yoon, Il-Yong
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[11] Hyung-Gyu Lim, Jong-Min Kim, Min-Kyu Kim, Young-Ho
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[12] http://www.allegromicro.com, A1360, A1361, and A1362:
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