Bioimpedance measurement is a non-invasive, radiation-free, and inexpensive method for measuring the electrical properties of biological tissues. In applications where transients occur, the commonly used swept sinewave is replaced with broadband signals such as multisine. This makes the signal generation and the extraction of the real and imaginary parts of the impedance challenging. In this brief, an alternative to traditional fast Fourier transform (FFT) or coherent demodulation is presented. Based on the Goertzel filter, this alternative is simpler and requires very few digital resources. Its robustness to the harmonic fold back phenomenon, enables simple ternary current pulses to be used for excitation. The developed digital architecture is capable of simultaneous demodulation of 16 frequencies with an accuracy of 97% and 96% on the magnitude and phase measurement respectively. Employing a ternary sequence allows the use of a low power H-bridge current driver. The analog front-end and demodulation algorithm were implemented in an ASIC using a 180-nm CMOS technology. The system was tested on an isolated pig heart distinguishing edema from non-edema tissue by impedance changes.

This paper describes an alternative sinusoidal current driver suitable for bioimpedance applications where high frequency operation is required. The circuit is based on a transconductor and provides current outputs with low phase error for frequencies around its pole frequency. This extends the upper frequency operational limit of the current driver. Multifrequency currents can be generated where each individual frequency is phase corrected. Analysis of the circuit is presented together with simulation and experimental results which demonstrate the proof of concept for both single and dual frequency current drivers. Measurements on a discrete test version of the circuit demonstrate a phase reduction from 25° to 4° at 3 MHz for 2 mAp-p output current. The output impedance of the current driver is essentially constant at about 1.1 M Ω over a frequency range of 100 kHz to 5 MHz due to the introduction of the phase compensation. The compensation provides a bandwidth increase of a factor of about six for a residual phase delay of 4°.

In a conventional sinewave current driver for electrical impedance spectroscopy, as the frequency is increased the input/output phase delay of the current driver increases due to limited bandwidth. The required maximum phase delays of < 4o mean that operation is limited to about 1/12 of the driver bandwidth. A new phase compensation scheme is presented to reduce the phase delay at higher frequencies and can extend the useful operating frequency range of a current driver. The system is capable of reducing the phase error due to the current driver by an appreciable level so that it can operate much nearer the pole frequency of the driver. An integrated circuit was fabricated in a 0.35 5m CMOS process technology which provides a phase error reduction from 22o to 3o at 3 MHz. Its core occupies a silicon area of 1.2 mm2. It operates from a ±2.5 V power supply and can deliver output currents up to 1.8 mAp-p at 3 MHz.

An important component in bioimpedance measurements is the current driver, which can operate over a wide range of impedance and frequency. This paper provides a review of integrated circuit analog current drivers which have been developed in the last 10 years. Important features for current drivers are high output impedance, low phase delay, and low harmonic distortion. In this paper, the analog current drivers are grouped into two categories based on open loop or closed loop designs. The characteristics of each design are identified.

Wireless biosensors are playing a pivotal role in health monitoring, disease detection and management. The development of wireless biosensor nodes and networks strongly relies on the design of novel low-power, low-cost and flexible CMOS sensor readouts. This paper presents a CMOS potentiostat that integrates a control amplifier, a dual-slope ADC and a wireless unit on the same chip. It implements a novel time-based readout scheme, whereby the counter of the dual-slope ADC is moved to the receiver and the sensor current is encoded in the timing between two wireless pulses transmitted via pulse-harmonic modulation across an inductive link. Measured results show that the potentiostat chip can resolve a minimum input current of 10pA at a sampling frequency of 125 Hz and a power consumption of 12 μW.

Accurate electrical impedance tomography (EIT) measurements require a current driver with low total harmonic distortion (THD) and high output impedance. Conventional EIT current drivers attain good performance for these parameters but at the expense of low current efficiency. This Brief presents a differential current driver based on a current feedback structure with isolated common-mode feedback, achieving very low THD, high output impedance and high current efficiency. In addition, it uses current DACs to remove any dc offsets at the output nodes. The current driver was fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS technology with 3.3 V supply. Measured results demonstrate a THD of 0.05% and 0.1% at 80 kHz, for 1 mAp-p and 1.375 mAp-p output current, respectively. The total current consumption is 1.54 mA, resulting in a maximum current efficiency of 89.3%. The measured output impedance is 1.023 MΩ at 500 kHz and 568 kΩ at 1 MHz.