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BRAINsens: Body-Worn Reconfigurable Architecture of Integrated Network Sensors

  • Mobile & Wireless Health
  • Published:
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Abstract

Body sensor network (BSN) is a promising human–centric technology to monitor neurophysiological data. We propose a fully-reconfigurable architecture that addresses the major challenges of a heterogenous BSN, such as scalabiliy, modularity and flexibility in deployment. Existing BSNs especially with Electroencephalogarm (EEG) have these limitations mainly due to the use of driven-right-leg (DRL) circuit. We address these limitations by custom-designing DRL-less EEG smart sensing nodes (SSN) for modular and spatially distributed systems. Each single-channel EEG SSN with a input-referred noise of 0.82 μVrms and CMRR of 70 dB (at 60 Hz), samples brain signals at 512 sps. SSNs in the network can be configured at the time of deployment and can process information locally to significantly reduce data payload of the network. A Control Command Node (CCN) initializes, synchronizes, periodically scans for the available SSNs in the network, aggregates their data and sends it wirelessly to a paired device at a baud rate of 115.2 kbps. At the given settings of the I2C bus speed of 100 kbps, CCN can configure up to 39 EEG SSNs in a lego-like platform. The temporal and frequency-domain performance of the designed “DRL-less” EEG SSNs is evaluated against a research-grade Neuroscan and consumer-grade Emotiv EPOC EEG. The results show that the proposed network system with wearable EEG can be deployed in situ for continuous brain signal recording in real-life scenarios. The proposed system can also seamlessly incorporate other physiological SSNs for ECG, HRV, temperature etc. along with EEG within the same topology.

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Funding

This work was partially supported by FedEx Institute of Technology Innovation Grant, The University of Memphis, TN, USA under Grant Number: 2013–537908.

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Correspondence to Ruhi Mahajan.

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All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This study involves the human participation and hence was pre-approved by the University of Memphis Institutional Review Board committee (Approval Number: 2289). The system’s safety, deployment, acquisition protocol and recruitment process were evaluated by the committee.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Mobile & Wireless Health

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Mahajan, R., Morshed, B.I. & Bidelman, G.M. BRAINsens: Body-Worn Reconfigurable Architecture of Integrated Network Sensors. J Med Syst 42, 185 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-018-1036-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-018-1036-0

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