| CPC H02J 50/15 (2016.02) [H02J 50/90 (2016.02); H02J 2310/23 (2020.01)] | 11 Claims |
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1. A method comprising:
acoustically coupling an acoustic transmitter to an external surface of a mammal at an approximate location of an implantable device disposed in the mammal, the acoustic transmitter includes a plurality of transmitting ultrasound transducers;
producing, with the acoustic transmitter, acoustic energy having a frequency in a frequency range of about 0.5 MHz to about 3 MHz;
receiving the acoustic energy with one or more transducers in the implantable device, the one or more transducers electrically connected to an electric circuit, the one or more transducers having a length in a length range of about 1 wavelength to about 10 wavelengths of the acoustic energy;
converting, with the one or more transducers, the acoustic energy to electric energy; and
providing the electric energy to a device electrically connected to the electric circuit;
measuring, with a first motion processing circuit (MPC) in the implantable device, a first three-dimensional position of the implantable device;
measuring, with a second MPC in the acoustic transmitter, a second three-dimensional position of the acoustic transmitter;
wirelessly sending the first three-dimensional position from the implantable device to the acoustic transmitter;
determining, with the second MPC, an alignment of the implantable device and the acoustic transmitter based on the first and second three-dimensional positions;
when the alignment is higher than or equal to a lower alignment threshold and less than an upper alignment threshold, automatically adjusting a relative phase of one or more of the transmitting ultrasound transducers to electronically steer the acoustic energy to reduce an incidence angle of the acoustic energy at the implantable device compared to when no electronic steering is performed; and
when the alignment is higher than or equal to the upper alignment threshold, producing an output signal indicating a direction to physically move the acoustic transmitter.
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