| dc.description.abstract | The noninvasive measurement of vital signs, particularly for cardiovascular and respiratory disease, is of great importance, since it can be used for monitoring the progress of a patient’s condition. In fact, monitoring the progress of a patient after they have left the hospital can be just as important as while they are in the hospital. For this reason, many companies as well as research institutions are developing wearable devices that can continuously monitor the vital signs of a patient. A common way to measure vital signs such as heart rate and respiration rate is by using light-based methods, but they have some weaknesses such as relatively high energy consumption. Hence, it is important to continue to develop alternative sensing systems.
The goal of this research is to develop a small form factor bioimpedance circuit that captures artery pulsation, which can then be used to obtain vital signs such as heart rate and respiration rate. Bioimpedance itself is an electrical-based sensing method which consists of injecting a small current and then measuring the voltage change. The developed bioimpedance circuit consists of three sections: (1) a section to generate a high single-frequency, low current signal to be injected into the body, (2) a section to capture and measure the voltage differential generated across two points in the subject’s body due to the current injected, and (3) a section that takes the measured voltage differential and processes it to obtain the desired bioimpedance signal. From the bioimpedance signal, one can then obtain physiologically relevant information such as heart rate, and respiration rate. | |
