With advancement in medical technologies and the idea to bring less complicated into the picture, the biomedical industry is seeing new innovations on daily basis.
No electrical contact and gels.
No wires, leads, or medical tape.
No any need to remove the patient’s clothes.
This has to be an ultimate remote physiological monitoring sensor.
Electric Potential Integrated Circuit (EPIC)
Its a very sensitive, contactless digital voltmeter capable of measuring millivolt changes in electric fields, like a magnetometer detects changes in a magnetic field. The sensor has a huge input impedance (10s of gigaohms), so this enables to measure extremely low powered biomedical signals such as ECGs, EOGs etc.Furthermore, the filtering technology does not allow the noise to obscure the signal of interest. So while monitoring ECG from a subject, the output doesn’t allow the electromyographic signals (due to respiration and body movements etc.) to obscure the ECG trace.
You can also view the block diagram and technical specifications from here.
Advantages & Applications
- Senses the electrical activity of skeletal muscles including those that control the eyes (EOGs).
- Assisting the disabled, quadriplegics can get the ability to control a cursor on a computer screen or operate a motorized wheelchair with a series of eye movements.
- In prosthetics, it could benefit amputees, who can be employed with a myoelectric hand working on the EMG signals from the residual limb.
- It can pick up minute changes in electric fields through walls. For example, it would allow a firefighter to tell whether someone is inside a smoke-filled room.
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