An epiretinal prosthesis system which provides systematic electrical stimulation to the surviving retinal cells has undergone successful clinical trials. It has succeeded in providing limited form of vision like shape recognition of high contrast images, to patients. With sufficient post-operation rehabilitative care, patients were trained to use visual cues for personal mobility.;The epiretinal prosthesis considered in this dissertation is a dual-unit system. While one unit is placed external to the body, the other unit is implanted inside the eye of the patient. The two units communicate (i.e. transfer power and data) via an inductively coupled wireless telemetry link. The primary focus of this dissertation is the design and fabrication of telemetry coils of this inductive link.;In this work, a previously existing implementation of the partial inductance method was used to evaluate different designs of the coils for the inductively-coupled telemetry link at low frequencies. Workflow for the development of these air-cored coils has been presented. Effect of different orientations between the coils due to the rotation of the eye is primarily investigated in this work.;Methods to fabricate flexible coils for implantation over the nearly spherical eyeball of the patient are demonstrated. Trade-offs due to the use of new materials were evaluated while fabricating these new coils. Novel methods to overcome fabrication challenges are presented.
展开▼
