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Review
. 2022 Feb 21;9(2):84.
doi: 10.3390/bioengineering9020084.

Measuring Biosignals with Single Circuit Boards

Guido Ehrmann  1 , Tomasz Blachowicz  2 , Sarah Vanessa Homburg  3 , Andrea Ehrmann  3
Affiliations
Review

Measuring Biosignals with Single Circuit Boards

Guido Ehrmann et al. Bioengineering (Basel). .

Abstract

To measure biosignals constantly, using textile-integrated or even textile-based electrodes and miniaturized electronics, is ideal to provide maximum comfort for patients or athletes during monitoring. While in former times, this was usually solved by integrating specialized electronics into garments, either connected to a handheld computer or including a wireless data transfer option, nowadays increasingly smaller single circuit boards are available, e.g., single-board computers such as Raspberry Pi or microcontrollers such as Arduino, in various shapes and dimensions. This review gives an overview of studies found in the recent scientific literature, reporting measurements of biosignals such as ECG, EMG, sweat and other health-related parameters by single circuit boards, showing new possibilities offered by Arduino, Raspberry Pi etc. in the mobile long-term acquisition of biosignals. The review concentrates on the electronics, not on textile electrodes about which several review papers are available.

Keywords: Arduino; ECG; EMG; Raspberry Pi; elderly; firefighters; health condition; health status; sportsman; sweat.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Architecture of (a) single board computers; (b) microcontrollers. Abbreviations: HDM—High Density Metric; LAN—Local Area Network; WLAN—Wireless LAN; I2C—Inter-Integrated Circuit; RS—Recommended Standard; I/O—Input/Output; CPU—Central Processing Unit; RAM—Random Access Memory; EPROM—Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Block diagram of a typical measurement setup using a single circuit board (SCB).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Example signal measured on a steering wheel whilst driving. From [57], originally published under a CC-BY license.
Figure 4
Figure 4
ECG measurement plot obtained by the Arduino device in combination with AD8232. From [66], originally published under a CC-BY license.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Experimental equipment, comparing Arduino Mega (1) connected to Myoware EMG muscle sensor (2) with a commercial device (3). From [97], originally published under a CC-BY license.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Pick-and-place experiments, (A) with a proband wearing the prosthetic hand attached by a special socket, (B) showing three objects which had to be grasped and relocated. From [108], originally published under a CC-BY license.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Electrode design (left panel) and implementation (right panel). From [126], originally published under a CC-BY license.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Circuit diagram of the temperature and heart rate monitoring system. From [144], originally published under a CC-BY license.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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