A programmable microsystem using system-on-chip for real-time biotelemetry

A telemetry microsystem, including multiple sensors, integrated instrumentation and a wireless interface has been implemented. We have employed a methodology akin to that for System-on-Chip microelectronics to design an integrated circuit instrument containing several "intellectual property" blocks that will enable convenient reuse of modules in future projects. The present system was optimized for low-power and included mixed-signal sensor circuits, a programmable digital system, a feedback clock control loop and RF circuits integrated on a 5 mm × 5 mm silicon chip using a 0.6 μm, 3.3 V CMOS process. Undesirable signal coupling between circuit components has been investigated and current injection into sensitive instrumentation nodes was minimized by careful floor-planning. The chip, the sensors, a magnetic induction-based transmitter and two silver oxide cells were packaged into a 36 mm × 12 mm capsule format. A base station was built in order to retrieve the data from the microsystem in real-time. The base station was designed to be adaptive and timing tolerant since the microsystem design was simplified to reduce power consumption and size. The telemetry system was found to have a packet error rate of 10<sup>-</sup><sup>3</sup> using an asynchronous simplex link. Trials in animal carcasses were carried out to show that the transmitter was as effective as a conventional RF device whilst consuming less power

Portable Bio-Devices: Design of Electrochemical Instruments from Miniaturized to Implantable Devices

The integration of biosensors and electronic technologies allows the development of biomedical systems able to diagnose and monitoring pathologies by detecting specific biomarkers. The chapter presents the main modules involved in the development of such devices, generically represented in Fig. 1, and focuses its attention on the essential components of these systems to address questions such as: how is the device powered? How does it communicate the measured data? What kind of sensors could be used?, and What kinds of electronics are used

Workshop on Advanced Technologies for Planetary Instruments, part 1

This meeting was conceived in response to new challenges facing NASA's robotic solar system exploration program. This volume contains papers presented at the Workshop on Advanced Technologies for Planetary Instruments on 28-30 Apr. 1993. This meeting was conceived in response to new challenges facing NASA's robotic solar system exploration program. Over the past several years, SDIO has sponsored a significant technology development program aimed, in part, at the production of instruments with these characteristics. This workshop provided an opportunity for specialists from the planetary science and DoD communities to establish contacts, to explore common technical ground in an open forum, and more specifically, to discuss the applicability of SDIO's technology base to planetary science instruments

Bioelectronics for Amperometric Biosensors

The Discrete-to-Integrated Electronics group (D2In), at the University of Barcelona, in partnership with the Bioelectronics and Nanobioengineering Group (SICBIO), is researching Smart Self-Powered Bio-Electronic Systems. Our interest is focused on the development of custom built electronic solutions for bio-electronics applications, from discrete devices to Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) solutions. The integration of medical and electronic technologies allows the development of biomedical devices able to diagnose and/or treat pathologies by detecting and/or monitoring pathogens, multiple ions, PH changes, and so on. Currently this integration enables advances in various areas such as microelectronics, microfluidics, microsensors and bio-compatible materials which open the door to developing human body Lab-on-a-Chip implantable devices, Pointof- Care in vitro devices, etc. In this chapter the main attention is focused on the design of instrumentation related to amperometrics biosensor: biopotentiostat amplifiers and lock-in amplifiers. A potentiostat is a useful tool in many fields of investigation and industry performing electrochemical trials [1], so the quantity and variety of them is very extensive. Since they can be used in studies and targets as different as the study of chemical metal conversions [2] or carcinogenic cells detection, neuronal activity detection or Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) recognition, their characteristics are very varied..

A Wi-Fi cloud-based portable potentiostat for electrochemical biosensors

The measurement of the analyte concentration in electrochemical biosensors traditionally requires costly laboratory equipment to obtain accurate results. Innovative portable solutions have recently been proposed, but usually, they lean on personal computers (PCs) or smartphones for data elaboration and they exhibit poor resolution or portability and proprietary software. This paper presents a low-cost portable system, assembling an ad hoc -designed analog front end (AFE) and a development board equipped with a system on chip integrating a microcontroller and a Wi-Fi network processor. The wireless module enables the transmission of measurements directly to a cloud service for sharing device outcome with users (physicians, caregivers, and so on). In doing so, the system does not require neither the customized software nor other devices involved in data acquisition. Furthermore, when any Internet connection is lost, the data are stored on board for subsequent transmission when a Wi-Fi connection is available. The noise output voltage spectrum has been characterized. Since the designed device is intended to be battery-powered to enhance portability, investigations about battery lifetime were carried out. Finally, data acquired with a conventional benchtop Autolab PGSTAT-204 electrochemical workstation are compared with the outcome of our developed device to validate the effectiveness of our proposal. To this end, we selected ferri/ferrocyanide as redox probe, obtaining the calibration curves for both the platforms. The final outcomes are shown to be feasible, accurate, and repeatable

Fully Integrated Biochip Platforms for Advanced Healthcare

Recent advances in microelectronics and biosensors are enabling developments of innovative biochips for advanced healthcare by providing fully integrated platforms for continuous monitoring of a large set of human disease biomarkers. Continuous monitoring of several human metabolites can be addressed by using fully integrated and minimally invasive devices located in the sub-cutis, typically in the peritoneal region. This extends the techniques of continuous monitoring of glucose currently being pursued with diabetic patients. However, several issues have to be considered in order to succeed in developing fully integrated and minimally invasive implantable devices. These innovative devices require a high-degree of integration, minimal invasive surgery, long-term biocompatibility, security and privacy in data transmission, high reliability, high reproducibility, high specificity, low detection limit and high sensitivity. Recent advances in the field have already proposed possible solutions for several of these issues. The aim of the present paper is to present a broad spectrum of recent results and to propose future directions of development in order to obtain fully implantable systems for the continuous monitoring of the human metabolism in advanced healthcare applications

Development of a handheld fiber-optic probe-based raman imaging instrumentation: raman chemlighter

Raman systems based on handheld fiber-optic probes offer advantages in terms of smaller sizes and easier access to the measurement sites, which are favorable for biomedical and clinical applications in the complex environment. However, there are several common drawbacks of applying probes for many applications: (1) The fixed working distance requires the user to maintain a certain working distance to acquire higher Raman signals; (2) The single-point-measurement ability restricts realizing a mapping or scanning procedure; (3) Lack of real-time data processing and a straightforward co-registering method to link the Raman information with the respective measurement position. The thesis proposed and experimentally demonstrated various approaches to overcome these drawbacks. A handheld fiber-optic Raman probe with an autofocus unit was presented to overcome the problem arising from using fixed-focus lenses, by using a liquid lens as the objective lens, which allows dynamical adjustment of the focal length of the probe. An implementation of a computer vision-based positional tracking to co-register the regular Raman spectroscopic measurements with the spatial location enables fast recording of a Raman image from a large tissue sample by combining positional tracking of the laser spot through brightfield images. The visualization of the Raman image has been extended to augmented and mixed reality and combined with a 3D reconstruction method and projector-based visualization to offer an intuitive and easily understandable way of presenting the Raman image. All these advances are substantial and highly beneficial to further drive the clinical translation of Raman spectroscopy as potential image-guided instrumentation

Advanced sensors technology survey

This project assesses the state-of-the-art in advanced or 'smart' sensors technology for NASA Life Sciences research applications with an emphasis on those sensors with potential applications on the space station freedom (SSF). The objectives are: (1) to conduct literature reviews on relevant advanced sensor technology; (2) to interview various scientists and engineers in industry, academia, and government who are knowledgeable on this topic; (3) to provide viewpoints and opinions regarding the potential applications of this technology on the SSF; and (4) to provide summary charts of relevant technologies and centers where these technologies are being developed