Home Health Monitoring Device — Biomedical Instrumentation & Clinical Sensing

Abstract — Home Health Monitoring Device

technologies for early diagnosis and continuous monitoring. This review will outline the current state of the art in a number of relevant fields, including device engineering, chemistry, nanoscience and biomolecular detection, and suggest how these advances might be employed to develop effective systems for measuring physiology, detecting infection and monitoring biomarker status in wild animals. Special consideration is also given to the emerging threat of antimicrobial resistance and in the light of the current SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, zoonotic infections. Both of these areas involve significant crossover between animal and human health and are therefore well placed to seed technological developments with applicability to both human and animal health and, more generally, the reviewed technologies have significant potential to find use in the measurement of physiology in wild animals.

Sensor Interfacing & Analog Front-End Conditioning

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Measuring physiology in free-living animals (Part II)’. Keywords: biosensors, MEMs, neuroprosthetic devices, antimicrobial resistance, zoonoses Sensor technologies have been an active area of research for a great many years with examples of the oxygen monitoring electrode for surgery and first-, second- and third-generation glucose biosensors finding widespread adoption and now routine use . Sensor technologies have enabled environmental monitoring , improved control of industrial processes , given rise to purer drug formulations [ 4 , 5 ] and found numerous medical and biological applications, including the measurement of glucose for diabetes , lactate for a range of conditions and the routine determination of blood clotting . Sensor technologies have also been used in wild animal research since the first application of an intravascular pO 2 electrode in a diving penguin in 2005 , but the field of wild animal sensing lags far behind the biomedical industry. The development and implementation of smart sensing technologies is a growing area and builds on these advances in sensor science. For humans, there is now a strong focus on converting existing and established sensor formats into ‘wearable devices’ in order to achieve real time surveillance of physiological status and biomarker levels [ 10 – 12 ]. The ability to miniaturize and implant sensor systems is driven by fundamental advances in a range of disciplines, including microsystems engineering, chemistry (enhanced bio-recognition elements, hydrogel research and new nanoscale technologies) and biomarker discovery.

Bio-Signal Waveform Analysis & Simulation Findings

Biosensor technologies can take many forms but a convenient and generic way to think about a biosensor is presented in figure 1 . The sensor must be brought into contact with the sample. The sample can undergo a pre-processing step such as the conversion of blood to serum via centrifugation if required, or unprocessed samples can either be placed on the sensor ( in vitro diagnostics) or allowed to come directly into contact with the sensor in the natural physiological state as in the case of wearable or implantable devices. Selectivity for the analyte of interest is achieved by employing a ‘bio-recognition element’ to selectively capture the analyte of interest from the sample. Binding and de-binding of the analyte gives rise to signal changes which can be measured through the sensor's transducer element. There are many governing principles for the method of signal transduction, including, optical, electrochemical, piezoelectric, thermal, magnetic and electrical. Once the signal has been generated it must be turned into an electrical format for display and interpretation.

Scope & Clinical Applications

• Real-time multi-parameter vital signs telemetry (ECG, Heart Rate, SpO2, Temperature, Respiration)
• Low-noise Analog Front-End (AFE) conditioning with active Driven Right Leg (DRL) 50 Hz cancellation
• Digital signal processing in MATLAB: Pan-Tompkins QRS detection, FIR/IIR notch, and Continuous Wavelet Transforms
• Finite element tissue bio-electromagnetics and orthopedic mechanical simulations in COMSOL & ANSYS
• Complete Arduino firmware .INO sketches, circuit schematics, and university dissertation reports