Resonant Link’s technology would allow patients with certain devices to recharge at home instead of having to go back to a doctor
When Grayson Zulauf worked for a commercial electric vehicle company in 2013, he recalls being excited about the prospect of using wireless technologies to recharge EV fleets. But while he was earning his PhD in electronics at Stanford years later, Zulauf realized that wireless technologies were greatly needed in the medical industry to recharge batteries of implanted medical devices such as pacemakers, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators and insulin pumps.
“Wireless charging is a safe, non-invasive way of recharging batteries for this growing class of implantable devices,” says Zulauf. Wireless chargers are most commonly used to recharge phones batteries and work on centuries old principles of physics. The charger, also known as the transmitter, contains a metallic coil which generates a magnetic field when electricity runs through it. The receiver in the device that needs charging, collects this magnetic energy and converts it into electricity and the device gets charged.
The startup is already working with device manufacturers to develop wireless charging compatible devices and working with them to seek FDA clearances. While patients with pacemakers will still need to visit a medical facility to recharge batteries compatible with Resonant chargers, patients with implanted devices such as spinal cord and deep brain stimulators could charge them at home within two hours, Zulauf says.