A Multi-Channel Electromyography, Electrocardiography and Inertial Wireless Sensor Module Using Bluetooth Low-Energy

Giorgio Biagetti,Paolo Crippa,Laura Falaschetti,Claudio Turchetti

doi:10.3390/electronics9060934

Giorgio Biagetti, Paolo Crippa + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9060934

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Journal: Electronics	Publication Date: Jun 4, 2020
Citations: 17	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Marche Polytechnic University

Abstract

This paper proposes a wireless sensor device for the real-time acquisition of bioelectrical signals such as electromyography (EMG) and electrocardiography (ECG), coupled with an inertial sensor, to provide a comprehensive stream of data suitable for human activity detection, motion analysis, and technology-assisted nursing of persons with physical or cognitive impairments. The sensor is able to acquire up to three independent bioelectrical channels (six electrodes), each with 24 bits of resolution and a sampling rate up to 3.2 kHz, and has a 6-DoF inertial platform measuring linear acceleration and angular velocity. The bluetooth low-energy wireless link was chosen because it allows easy interfacing with many consumer electronics devices, such as smartphones or tablets, that can work as data aggregators, but also imposes data rate restrictions. These restrictions are investigated in this paper as well, together with the strategy we adopted to maximize the available bandwidth and reliability of the transmission within the limits imposed by the protocol.

Highlights

Nowadays, wearable wireless sensors placed on the skin of the human body are becoming very common in many application fields such as healthcare, sport, fitness, ambient assisted living, entertainment, autonomous driving systems [1,2]
Three body signals (i.e., electromyography (EMG), electrocardiography (ECG), and acceleration (ACC)) that can be captured by these sensors, have been demonstrated to be able to provide accurate and reliable information on people’s activities and behaviors
Low-cost and low-energy wearable wireless EMG/ECG/ACC sensors can be efficiently used for all day long telemonitoring of patients affected by dementia or neurodegenerative disorders characterized by progressive decline in cognitive and functional abilities

Summary

Introduction

Wearable wireless sensors placed on the skin of the human body are becoming very common in many application fields such as healthcare, sport, fitness, ambient assisted living, entertainment, autonomous driving systems [1,2]. Three body signals (i.e., electromyography (EMG), electrocardiography (ECG), and acceleration (ACC)) that can be captured by these sensors, have been demonstrated to be able to provide accurate and reliable information on people’s activities and behaviors. Low-cost and low-energy wearable wireless EMG/ECG/ACC sensors can be efficiently used for all day long telemonitoring of patients affected by dementia or neurodegenerative disorders characterized by progressive decline in cognitive and functional abilities. The quality of life (QoL) experienced by family caregivers has been shown to be lower than the QoL of caregivers for persons who do not have dementia [3,4]. Research has shown that lower QoL can increase absences from work and reduce job productivity

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