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Medical Implant Powered by Music

It is certainly an odd idea, but a rather effective one: Power a medical implant, with the beats of whatever song you happen to be listening to at the time. That in a nutshell is what Purdue university researchers have done with their latest prototype sensing device.

What the device senses doesn't actually matter. It could be a diabetics monitor, or an incontinence warning device. The base mechanics are the same, and it is literally powered by sound. Specifically bass sounds.

Created as a joint venture by doctoral student Albert Kim, research scientist Teimour Maleki and Professor Babak Ziaie, the sensor is a microelectromechanical system which is based on a vibrating cantilever. Basically, it is a thin beam attached to a larger sensor at one end like a miniature diving board. Music within a certain range of frequencies, from 200-500 hertz, causes the cantilever to vibrate, generating electricity on piezoelectric principles. This charge is then stored in a capacitor.

It could charge perfectly happily from a plain tone sounded at the correcrt frequency, and placed a few inches from the patient. However, that would quickly get on the patient's nerves. So, If they are going to use sound, why not use something a bit more pleasant to listen to?

Professor Ziaie stated as much. "A plain tone is a very annoying sound. We thought it would be novel and also more aesthetically pleasing to use music."


It doesn't even matter which songs you play, so long as they broadcast within the sensitive frequency range, at least part of the time. Listen to enough songs with a personal music player, and the device is fully charged.

In fact, the researchers experimented with four types of music: rap, blues, jazz and rock.

However, even the 'less than optimal' other types still worked, they just took longer. If rap was not your musical taste, you would just have to listen tio more music each day to get the same charge.


In theory, the implant could be left in place permanently; only powering up when the patient hears music, and transmitting its data in between the valid frequency range pulses. If you listen to radio in the car whilst commuting each day, that is more than enough to keep it powered.

Findings are detailed in a paper, “A Novel Electromechanical Interrogation Scheme for Implantable Passive Transponders” to be presented during the IEEE MEMS conference.


Rap music powers rhythmic action of medical sensor

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