Electromagnetic Immunity of Pacemakers and Implantable Defibrillators to Wireless Power Transfer Systems for Automotive: A Provocative Study

Wireless power transfer (WPT) in automotive is an emerging technology that utilizes coupled coils to transfer power through time-varying magnetic fields, enabling the charging of electric vehicles. Like any electromagnetic field source, WPT systems can potentially interfere with other electronic devices, impacting their proper functioning. This risk requires evaluation, especially when the affected device is a cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED), as malfunctioning can pose serious hazards to the patient's safety. Currently, WPT technology is in its early stages and has not been explicitly considered during the drafting of current CIED regulations. Consequently, predicting the behavior of a CIED when in proximity to a WPT system is not straightforward, and new experimental data are necessary. The objective of this article is to conduct in-vitro testing on a representative sample of pacemakers (PMs) and implantable cardioverter/defibrillators exposed to a magnetic field at the frequency of WTP systems, with field levels gradually increasing up to ICNIRP occupational reference levels. Compared to previous studies, the main novelty is to assess, on 11 commercial CIEDs, a safety margin for the exposure to the magnetic field dispersed by a WPT system, under worst-case exposure condition. Over a total of 51 conducted tests 24 interfering events were observed: only 1 occurred with a magnetic field at 50μT while all the others were observed with higher field levels, at 75 and 100μT. Thus, the results of this research demonstrate that the risk of interference is very low. Electromagnetic interference phenomena were observed only under worst-case conditions (e.g., maximum sensitivity of the device, maximum lead loop area, pulsed modulation, and unipolar configuration for PMs) and at exposure levels above the ICNIRP general population reference levels.