BIO-MEDICAL

INSTRUMENTATION
BIO-TELEMETRY
 Bio-telemetry is an electrical technique for
conveying biological information from a
living organism and its environment to a
location where this information can be
recorded.
 It refers to communication between a living
system and an observer.
ELEMENTS OF BIO-TELEMETRY
SYSTEM
 Transducer: Converts biological variable
into electrical signal.
 Signal conditioner: Amplifies and modifies
the signal for effective transmission.
 Transmission link: Connects the signal input
blocks to readout device by wire.
DESIGN OF BIO-TELEMETRY
SYSTEM
 Telemetering system should transmit bio-electric signals with
maximum fidelity and simplicity.
 No reaction or interference with the living system.
 Size and weight of the system should be small. For long term or
implant units the weight and size limit is of the order of 1%.For
shorter duration about 5%.
 More stability and reliability.
 Power consumption should be small for extension of source life
time.
 For wire transmission , shielding of cables is done to reduce
noise level. Differential amplifiers are used to reject common
mode interference.
RADIO-TELEMETRY SYSTEMS
They are of two types:
 Single channel
 Multi-channel
SINGLE CHANNEL TELEMETRY
SYSTEM
 A miniature battery operated radio transmitter is
connected to the electrodes of the patients.
 The transmitter broadcasts the bipotential over a
limited range to the receiver.
 The receiver detects the radio signals and recovers it
for further processing.
 Negligible connections and stray capacitances
between the electrode circuit and the system. Risk to
the patient is the battery operated transmitter but the
power is kept low.
 Radio frequency-few hundred KHZ-300MHZ.
 Beyond this frequency range, attenuation becomes
excessive.
 Hence the transmitter and the man made noise is
made small.
 Amplitude modulation is not adopted coz when
signal amplitude is varied it introduces error.
 Frequency or pulse modulation techniques are
adopted.
TRANSMISSION OF BIOELECTRIC
VARIABLES
 Active measurements: Bioelectric variables
like ECG, EMG and EEG are measured
directly without using excitation voltage.
 Passive measurements: Physiological
variables like blood pressure, temperature,
blood flow are measured indirectly using
transducers and excitation voltage
TELEMETRY CIRCUITS
 Tunnel diode FM transmitter
 Hartley type FM transmitter
 Pulsed Hartley oscillator
TUNNEL DIODE FM
TRANSMITTER
 Used for transmission
of EMG, ECG, EEG,
respiration rate..
 Tunnel diodes are active devices (TD, BD) and circuit has
higher sensitivity and fidelity.
 Total weight with battery -1.44 gm.
 Size-0.8 x 0.22 cm2
 Radio frequency used: 100-250 MHZ
 Frequency response: 0.01HZ-20KHZ
 Input impedance: 300 kilo ohms-Mega ohms.
 Temperature stability of carrier frequency: 0.05%/degree c.
 Varactor diodes- voltage sensitive semiconductor capacitors
are used for frequency modulation.
 Signal transmission is through inductor.
Advantages
 Signal transmission from the surface of the
object to the receiver is in a normal hospital
environment.
 No shielded room is necessary.
 Interference is greatly reduced.
HARTLEY TYPE FM
TRANSMITTER
 Used for the
transmission of ECG,
EEG and EMG.
 The capacitor C1 and inductor L form the tank components of
Hartley oscillator.
 C2-coupling capacitor
 T1-driver amplifier transistor
 T2-oscillator transistor
 Capacitance between emitter and base is voltage sensitive to
frequency modulate the carrier.
 Amplitude of the signal-10 microvolt-several mV
 Transmission range for power consumption level in mW-few
metres to 30 metres.
 Bandwidth-100 to 1000 HZ.
PULSED HARTLEY OSCILLATOR
 To measure temperature, a thermistor is placed
instead of R1.
 To measure pressure, pressure changes are given to
core M.
 To measure pH or voltage , electrodes are
connected across XX’.
 The transmitter is modulated by varying the pulses
of RF oscillations
 Circuit simple with low power consumption-5 to
10 microwatt
RADIO TELEMETRY WITH A SUB-
CARRIER
 When the relative position of transmitter to the body
or other conduction object changes, the carrier
frequency and amplitude change due to loading
change of carrier frequency resonant circuit.
 If the signal has a frequency different from the
loading effect, they can be separated by filters.
Otherwise real signal will be distorted by loading
effect.
 To avoid loading effect, sub carrier system is
needed.
 The signal is modulated on a sub carrier to
convert signal frequency to the
neighbourhood of sub carrier frequency.
 RF carrier is modulated by this sub carrier.
 The receiver detects RF and recovers the
subcarrier.
IMPLANT STRESS TRANSMITTER
 The signal from the strain gauge changes the
resistance of the two arms of the bridge to amplify
modulate the 20KHZ sub carrier generated by
tunnel diode.
 This is fed to a FM circuit to frequency modulate
the 100MHZ RF carrier.
 The tunnel diode serves as RF carrier oscillator and
modulator.
 The transistor amplifies the carrier and radiates it
through coil L2.
 The 20KHZ sub carrier produced by the FM
receiver is filtered.
 It is then amplified and detected to get stress
information.
 The stress signal with about 1/30 HZ can be
recorded for several weeks with this circuit.
MULTIPLE CHANNEL
TELEMETRY SYSTEMS
It is of two types:
 Frequency division multiplex
 Time division multiplex
FREQUENCY DIVISION
MULTIPLEX SYSTEM
 Each signal is frequency modulated on a sub carrier
frequency.
 These are then combined to modulate the main RF
carrier.
 At the receiver side, the modulated sub carriers are
separated by band pass filters. Individual signals are
recovered by 2nd set of discriminators.
 LPF’s are used to extract the signal without noise.
TIME DIVISION MULTIPLEX
SYSTEM
 TDM system is used because bio-medical
signals have low frequency bandwidth
requirements.
 The transmission channel is connected to each
signal input for sampling.
 When all the channels in a cycle have been
scanned the next cycle will start.
 At the receiver end, the process is reversed.
 Sequentially arranged signal pulses are
distributed to individual channels by a
synchronized switching circuit.
 If the no of scanning cycles/second is large
the signal in each channel is recovered
without distortion.
CONDITIONS
 The scanning frequency fn should be greater
than twice the maximum signal frequency.
fn>2fs max
 If Tn=1/fn=scanning period tn is the
sampling time of each channel
 Maximum no of channels n=Tn/tn
 n should be small to avoid interference
between channels
PROBLEMS IN IMPLANT
TELEMETRY
 Long term telemetry-electronic circuit packed in a
capsule-implanted subcutaneously deep into the
body closer to signal source-avoids mechanical
difficulties.
 Size and weight limitations are serious-reliability
requirement more critical.
 Body reaction: size, weight, surface condition and
shape affect it. E.G: medical grade silastic, teflon,
glass are used as enclosures.
 Protection of electronic circuits: coating
materials are silicon rubber, epoxy, plastics,
glass and metal. For implants of a few months
we can have three layers of structure with
silastic outer coating to reduce tissue reaction
and inner layers of epoxy or paraffin for
protection from leakage. Glass and metal seal
to avoid air pockets.
Power supplies: two special types:
 Environmental power supply: Radio
induction to transmit mW of power to implant
telemetry unit for months.
 Microwatt power supply circuits using
piezoelectric crystals placed on blood vessel
or aorta.
USES OF BIO-TELEMETRY
 To record bio signals over long periods while patient
is engaged in normal activities.
 Easy diagnosis of the nature of disease.
 No mechanical or physical disturbance to the patient.
 For future reference or to study treatment effect.
 For recording on animals for research.
 For monitoring persons who are in action.