Two fields of cardiovascular energy harvesting are investigated, (1) stents and (2)
leadless pacemaker. The demand for rechargeable technologies in cardiovascular stents
arose from the unmet clinical need for real-time tracking of re-occlusions in implantable
stents. This thesis entertains the idea of piezoelectric cantilevers positioned at the
inlet/outlets of the stent to harness the pulsatile blood flow within arterial cavities to
power wireless communication circuits to notify physicians of plaque growth. A MATLAB
study utilizing literature-based blood flow velocities in both healthy and diseased patients
yielded 3.5mV energy harvesting potentiality. Then, a large-scale benchtop study
successfully produced a simplistic model to see if the pressure differences expected across
the stent (.4 Pa). Both tests prove the feasibility of such a design. With a 95% reduction in
volume from its predecessors, the leadless pacemaker traded compatibility with battery
longevity going from a 10-year device lifetime to 6 years [3,34]. Enclosed is an energy
harvesting accessory intended to slip around leadless in-ventricular pacemakers such as
the Medtronic Micra. Two designs featured mechanisms to harvest the blood pressure and
the ventricular wall force from within the heart cavity via electromagnetic induction by ferrofluid and solid ring magnets. The team promptly abandoned the ferrofluid mechanism due to its limited induction capabilities after its 20x deficiencies compared to solid core magnets demonstrated by multiple benchtop tests. However, the solid ring magnet design
proved successful after meeting eight out of nine acceptance criteria through simulation
studies [Modal/Fatigue/Induced Voltage/Heat Generation/Mesh compliance] and
benchtop studies [Induced Voltage/Magnet Shielding/Heat Generation].