Touch Free Wireless Sensing
TOUCH-FREE WIRELESS SENSING UC San Diego electrical engineering PhD student Yu Mike Chi has developed a wireless sensor that records "biopotentials" - tiny voltage signals that appear on the skin surface - without touching the skin. Biopotentials emanate from electrically active cells, such as neurons and cardiac cells, and propagate through the conductive media of the human body.
Chi's solution is unique in that it eliminates not only the wires for transmitting the data, but also the wires between electrodes that are conventionally needed to establish a voltage signal with a reference and ground, explained Gert Cauwenberghs, bioengineering professor at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
Although various wireless sensor prototypes for recording biopotential have been around for decades, they have struggled to move beyond the prototype stage because wireless sensors are more complex than the wired versions. Chi simplified the circuitry of his sensor, making it more reliable and cheaper than other methods.
