Abstract

This work compares two design methodologies, emulating both AgCl electrode and skin tissue Cole models for testing and verification of electrical bio-impedance circuits and systems. The models are based on fractional-order elements, are implemented with active components, and capture bio-impedance behaviors up to 10 kHz. Contrary to passive-elements realizations, both architectures using analog filters coupled with adjustable transconductors offer tunability of the fractional capacitors’ parameters. The main objective is to build a tunable active integrated circuitry block that is able to approximate the models’ behavior and can be utilized as a Subject Under Test (SUT) and electrode equivalent in bio-impedance measurement applications. A tetrapolar impedance setup, typical in bio-impedance measurements, is used to demonstrate the performance and accuracy of the presented architectures via Spectre Monte-Carlo simulation. Circuit and post-layout simulations are carried out in 90-nm CMOS process, using the Cadence IC suite.

Highlights

  • The electrical properties of tissues are strongly related to their structural characteristics and their functional properties [1,2,3]

  • The fractional order impedance is formed as a parallel combination of a resistor and a fractional capacitor acting as a Constant Phase Element (CPE), introducing the Cole behavior

  • To achieve electronic tuning of the CPE’s model characteristics we follow [37] and use operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) and current conveyors of the second generation (CCIIs). Both fractional-order capacitors for skin and electrode models are designed using two cascaded filters, H1 (s) and H2 (s), connected with a multiple-output OTA, which acts as a voltage-to-current (V/I) converter [37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44]

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Summary

Introduction

The electrical properties of tissues are strongly related to their structural characteristics and their functional properties [1,2,3]. Proper modelling of the tissues under test electrical characteristics is a crucial step during the design process of bio-impedance measurement systems. To this end, designers simulate and employ equivalent circuits of the SUT [21,22,23,24], usually implemented using lumped passive elements (capacitors and resistors). The circuit is designed, laid out, and simulated in Cadence using a Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) 90-nm CMOS process Both electrode and skin Cole IC-design models are validated and compared to the RC approximations (magnitude and phase) for the models’ mean parameter values.

Skin and Electrode Cole Models
The Skin Model
The Electrode Model
Circuit Realization of the Electrode and Skin Cole Models
Valsa-Vlach Fractional Order Capacitor RC Network Approximation
Versatile Active Fractional Capacitor Emulator
Inverse Follow-the-Leader Feedback Fractional Capacitor Emulator
Cole Model Tunable Resistor Ro Realization
Cole Model Circuit Realization Simulation Results
Cole Models Parameters Variation and Circuit Emulator Trimming
Electrode Model Parameter Variation
Skin Model Parameter Variation
Tetrapolar Model Simulation Results
Case I
Case II
Conclusions

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