Adaptation of a Solid-State Marx Modulator for Electroactive Polymer

Electroactive polymers show promising characteristics, such as lightness, compactness, flexibility, and large displacements, making them a candidate for application in cardiac assist devices. This revives the need for quasi-square wave voltage supply switching between 0 and several kilovolts, that must be efficient, to limit the heat dissipation, and compact in order to be implanted. The high- access resistance, associated with compliant electrodes, represents an additional difficulty. Here, a solid-state Marx modulator is adapted to cope with electroactive polymer characteristics, taking advantage of an efficient energy transfer over a sequential multistep charge/discharge process. To ensure compactness, efficiency, as well as the needs of an implanted device, a wireless magnetic field-based communication and power transfer system has been implemented. This work demonstrates the benefit of this design through simulations and experimental validation on a cardiac assist device. At a voltage of 7 kV, an efficiency of up to 88% has been achieved over a complete charge/discharge cycle.

Automated summary

Electroactive polymers have promising characteristics for application in cardiac assist devices, but the high access resistance and the need for efficient voltage supply switching and wireless communication and power transfer systems pose challenges.