Author : R. Arshath Raja and N. Prabakaran

The major requirement of implantable biomedical equipment like pacemaker, hearing aid device must have low power consumption and reliability. In order to provide a power to this biomedical equipment’s a new approach is presented in this paper, to extract electric power from heat of the subject or human body. Hereby the surgeries for battery implantation in the subject or human body can be avoided. The electrical power is extracted from human skin using a tactile sensor which is made adaptable to thermal changes in skin, this cause a change in potential thereby change in displacement results in change its piezo-resistance which causes change in potential. This change in potential can be stored in a battery of the biomedical equipment and then the battery will supply the source to the biomedical equipment. This tactile sensor is mounted at or near the contact interfaces mainly the skin and deal with the data from localized regions. A tactile sensor is designed as a rectangular plate with suitable materials like PI and Si3N4 provided with its own material specification and simulated based on MEMS technology. The piezo electric resistor is made of NiCr alloy which provides a better corrosion resistance thereby the life time of tactile sensor can be improved.

Keywords: Polyimide, MEMS, Piezo-electric Devices, Tactile Sensor, Skin

Article published in International Journal of Current  Engineering  and Technology, Vol.4,No.2 (April- 2014)