Asif Iftekhar Omi, an ECE Ph.D. student working with Dr. Baibhab Chatterjee, has been selected to receive the IEEE MTT-S Graduate Fellowship for Medical Applications, among the most prestigious of accolades in microwave engineering. The fellowship recognizes contributions which have the potential to reshape the future of healthcare technology, particularly in areas where microwave techniques play a pivotal role. Iftekhar Omi, who prefers to be known as Asif, is one of only two graduate students worldwide to receive the fellowship this year.
Asif received the fellowship in support of his research on Galvanic Body-Coupled Powering (GBCP) for implantable medical devices. His work addresses one of the most critical challenges in the biomedical circuits and systems community: the efficient and reliable powering of miniaturized medical implants.
Traditional solutions, such as batteries and percutaneous wiring, come with significant drawbacks, including risk of infection, material incompatibility, and the need for frequent surgical interventions. While wireless power transfer (WPT) methods such as inductive, capacitive, ultrasonic, optical, and RF-based techniques have made strides, they remain susceptible to misalignment and energy loss due to implant migration and body movement. Asif’s research explores efficiently adopting a new GBCP system that leverages the conductive properties of biological tissue environments to enable efficient and wireless power delivery to bio-implants. By utilizing conductive transmitter electrodes on the skin for differential excitation and a battery-free, thread-like implant (power receiver) equipped with an energy-harvesting rectifier, this system ensures stable power transfer while minimizing tissue absorption and transmission loss.
Unlike conventional wireless techniques, GBCP power receivers implanted at small depths are far less prone to misalignment, as they rely on locally distributed electric field-based coupling. Once received, this power can stimulate nerves and muscle via minimally invasive, tethered electrodes across various anatomical locations. Initial simulations validate the feasibility of this approach, demonstrating consistent power delivery exceeding 1 mW across varying tissue conditions within the 0.5–2 GHz range and complying with the ICNIRP/SAR safety guidelines.
The potential impact of this research is far-reaching, as it paves the way for next-generation implantable bioelectronics. This newly proposed GBCP system can pair with minimally invasive electrodes that anchor to internal structures like muscles and connect via flexible leads, enabling precisely targeted medical interventions without open surgery. Such a design minimizes immune and foreign body responses, promoting cohesive integration into bodily tissues and facilitating non-damaging neurostimulation of deep nerve targets that are presently inaccessible.
“As this technology further matures, it will have the potential to revolutionize micro-scale medical implants by enabling minimally invasive surgeries and offering improved misalignment tolerance during power transfer. Moving forward, a key focus will be further validation and in-vivo experimentation.”
Dr. Baibhab Chatterjee
This recognition by the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society reflects the potential impact of Asif’s work—not only in revolutionizing chronic disease management but also in opening new avenues for advanced neurological therapeutics. Looking ahead, the next phase of this research will focus on the fabrication and experimental validation of the GBCP-enabled energy harvester IC, accelerating the transition from theory to real-world clinical application and bringing us closer to a future where implantable devices operate seamlessly within the body and transform patient care through enhanced reliability, safety, and efficiency.
Part of this work is done in collaboration with the research groups of Dr. Adam Khalifa (ECE, UF) and Dr. Shriya Srinivasan (Bioengineering, Harvard University).
Further details can be found at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10798261