A Two-Wired Ultra-High Input Impedance Active Electrode.

This paper presents a novel two-wired active electrode that achieves ultrahigh input impedance using power supply bootstrapping. The proposed circuit reduces the input capacitance of a buffer amplifier while enabling measurements using leads with only two wires, providing a low-complexity and low-cost solution for interference rejection and artifact reduction in dc-coupled dry-contact biopotential measurements. An implemented prototype shows that, even using standard operational amplifiers, an input capacitance as low as 71 fF can be obtained, maintaining a high impedance in a 0-1 kHz bandwidth, sufficient for ECG, EEG, and EMG measurements.

A simple encoding method for Sigma-Delta ADC based biopotential acquisition systems.

Sigma Delta analogue-to-digital converters allow acquiring the full dynamic range of biomedical signals at the electrodes, resulting in less complex hardware and increased measurement robustness. However, the increased data size per sample (typically 24 bits) demands the transmission of extremely large volumes of data across the isolation barrier, thus increasing power consumption on the patient side. This problem is accentuated when a large number of channels is used as in current 128-256 electrodes biopotential acquisition systems, that usually opt for an optic fibre link to the computer.

Analysis and Simple Circuit Design of Double Differential EMG Active Electrode.

In this paper we present an analysis of the voltage amplifier needed for double differential (DD) sEMG measurements and a novel, very simple circuit for implementing DD active electrodes. The three-input amplifier that standalone DD active electrodes require is inherently different from a differential amplifier, and general knowledge about its design is scarce in the literature. First, the figures of merit of the amplifier are defined through a decomposition of its input signal into three orthogonal modes.

A multichannel EEG acquisition scheme based on single ended amplifiers and digital DRL.

Single ended (SE) amplifiers allow implementing biopotential front-ends with a reduced number of parts, being well suited for preamplified electrodes or compact EEG headboxes. On the other hand, given that each channel has independent gain; mismatching between these gains results in poor common-mode rejection ratios (CMRRs) (about 30 dB considering 1% tolerance components). This work proposes a scheme for multichannel EEG acquisition systems based on SE amplifiers and a novel digital driven right leg (DDRL) circuit, which overcome the poor CMRR of the front-end stage providing a high common mode reduction at power line frequency (up to 80 dB).

A versatile hardware platform for brain computer interfaces.

This article presents the development of a versatile hardware platform for brain computer interfaces (BCI). The aim of this work is to produce a small, autonomous and configurable BCI platform adaptable to the user's needs.

A practical approach to electrode-skin impedance unbalance measurement.

Unbalance between electrode-skin impedances is a major problem in biopotential recordings, leading to increased power-line interference. This paper proposes a simple, direct method to measure that unbalance at power-line frequency (50-60 Hz), thus allowing the determination of actual recording conditions for biopotential amplifiers. The method is useful in research, amplifier testing, electrode design and teaching purposes.

Two-electrode biopotential measurements: power line interference analysis.

In this paper, an analysis of power line interference in two-electrode biopotential measurement amplifiers is presented. A model of the amplifier that includes its input stage and takes into account the effects of the common mode input impedance Z(C) is proposed. This approach is valid for high Z(C) values, and also for some recently proposed low-Z(C) strategies.

A novel fully differential biopotential amplifier with dc suppression.

Fully differential amplifiers yield large differential gains and also high common mode rejection ratio (CMRR), provided they do not include any unmatched grounded component. In biopotential measurements, however, the admissible gain of amplification stages located before dc suppression is usually limited by electrode offset voltage, which can saturate amplifier outputs. The standard solution is to first convert the differential input voltage to a single-ended voltage and then implement any other required functions, such as dc suppression and dc level restoring.

AC-coupled front-end for biopotential measurements.

AC coupling is essential in biopotential measurements. Electrode offset potentials can be several orders of magnitude larger than the amplitudes of the biological signals of interest, thus limiting the admissible gain of a dc-coupled front end to prevent amplifier saturation. A high-gain input stage needs ac input coupling.