Wireless dry-contact biopotential electrode

A wireless ECG/EEG system using dry-contact electrodes is presented. The system consists of a pair of coin sized dry-contact electrodes manufactured on a standard printed circuit board that can operate both on top of the skin and through clothing. A wearable wireless base unit assures the transmission of the ECG/EEG signals to a computer for storage and processing. Each electrode provides a differential gain of 60dB or 80dB over a 0.7-150Hz bandwidth with a noise level of 0.8μV RMS and can be embedded within comfortable layers of fabric. Signals are digitized at the base unit by a 13-bit differential input ADC. The system is ideally suited for integration in wearable ECG chest harness or an EEG headband and can be used to monitor patient cardiac and neural signals in real time at home or in health care facilities. The preliminary results show that the proposed dry-contact electrode performs comparable to Ag/AgCl electrodes using either double sided adhesive disks, chest harness or headband for movement-free attachment.