Design

Dev Kit targets wearables & personal healthcare applications

4th December 2014
Siobhan O'Gorman
0

A Dev Kit based on an open hardware platform using a highly integrated multi-sensor data acquisition chip will be exhibited by imec and Holst Centre at the mHealth Summit 2014. At the event, which takes place from 7th to 11th December in Washington, D.C, the companies will situated at booth 610. 

Designed for multiple body sensors, such as Electrocardiogram (ECG) and bio-impedance, the chip combines on-board digital signal processing with analogue interfaces. The kit, which is small, lightweight and has an open sensor platform, can be fully customised with different sensors for the development of wearable and personal healthcare applications.

The Dev Kit is based on imec and Holst Centre’s Multi-Sensor Data Acquisition Chip (MUSEIC), which is highly accurate and low in power, enabling reliable monitoring for several days with only a single battery. The chip is also highly integrated, allowing for smaller, more comfortable devices and innovative designs.

The Dev Kit consists of a customisable sensor layer (including 3-lead ECG, bio-impedance, accelerometer and microphone), the MUSEIC chip, SD card storage, a Bluetooth (4.0) and Bluetooth low-energy compliant radio, and a separate ARM Cortex M4 processor.

The MUSEIC chip, which features analogue interfaces optimised for three-channel ECGs, bio-impedance and tissue impedance, is capable of collecting data from a wide range of on-body sensors (both analogue and digital interfacing) and performing basic signal processing. The chip features analogue interfaces optimised for three-channel ECGs, bio-impedance and tissue impedance, along with two-input general-purpose analogue and six digital (SPI and I2C) interfaces to connect to other sensors biomedical and physical sensors.

To improve performance and reduce power consumption, hardware accelerators manage matrix operations and motion artifact reduction, off-loading these tasks from the Cortex-M0 processor. When collecting ECG, bio-impedance and 3-axis accelerometer data, the Dev Kit typically consumes 10mW.

"One of the major limitations in the development of innovative personal healthcare applications is the availability of miniature and open hardware platforms,” commented Chris Van Hoof, Programme Director, imec. “Our Dev Kit will offer application developers a miniature, light-weight, and customisable hardware platform, enabling application development and field studies.”

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