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Capacitive ECG

Monitoring of cardiac electrical activity by means of non-contact capacitive ECG.

Contact Person

Durmus Umutcan Uguz
Onno Linschmann

Project Description

ECG signals enable monitoring the heart's electrical activity, one of the most vital functions. Thus, it is the gold standard for various cardiac diagnoses. Although ECG monitoring is a well-established method today, it is mainly limited to the hospital environment under the supervision of the medical staff. Moreover, conventional gel electrodes and the necessity of direct skin contact cause skin irritations and limit the innovations striving for a mobile ECG application.

A short video of one of the unobtrusive monitoring scenarios, where cECG is employed as well, can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJZqsSVdWRY&feature=youtu.be

An alternative to the classical ECG with conventional gelled electrodes is the capacitive ECG that can sense the ECG signal without any direct skin contact, for example, through the subject's clothing. Over the years, we have developed several systems measuring capacitive ECG unobtrusively, such as beds, car seats, and office chairs. Furthermore, we strive to extend this technology from monitoring healthy subjects to subjects with cardiac diseases or electrically active implants. As a result, these groups can be monitored out-of-hospital as well.

Project Goals

  • Extending the cardiac monitoring to out-of-hospital for a scaled-up pre-screening
  • Monitoring of driver's physiological state to ensure safety
  • Innovative solutions to improve healthcare infrastructure

Publications

Uguz, D. U., Dettori, R., Napp, A., Walter, M., Marx, N., Leonhardt, S., & Hoog Antink, C. (2020). Car Seats with Capacitive ECG Electrodes Can Detect Cardiac Pacemaker Spikes. Sensors, 20(21), 6288.
Uguz, D. U., Tufan, T. B., Uzun, A., Leonhardt, S., & Antink, C. H. (2020). Physiological motion artifacts in capacitive ECG: Ballistocardiographic impedance distortions. IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 69(6), 3297-3307.
Leicht, L., Skobel, E., Knackstedt, C., Mathissen, M., Sitter, A., Wartzek, T., ... & Teichmann, D. (2018). Capacitive ECG monitoring in cardiac patients during simulated driving. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 66(3), 749-758.
Hoog Antink, C., Schulz, F., Leonhardt, S., & Walter, M. (2018). Motion artifact quantification and sensor fusion for unobtrusive health monitoring. Sensors, 18(1), 38.
Leicht, L., Eilebrecht, B., Weyer, S., Leonhardt, S., & Teichmann, D. (2017). Closed-loop control of humidification for artifact reduction in capacitive ECG measurements. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, 11(2), 300-313
Eilebrecht, B., Willkomm, J., Pohl, A., Wartzek, T., & Leonhardt, S. (2013). Impedance measurement system for determination of capacitive electrode coupling. IEEE transactions on biomedical circuits and systems, 7(5), 682-689.
Eilebrecht, B., Henriques, J., Rocha, T., Walter, M., Paredes, S., de Carvalho, P., ... & Leonhardt, S. (2012). Automatic parameter extraction from capacitive ECG measurements. Cardiovascular Engineering and Technology, 3(3), 319-332.
Wartzek, T., Eilebrecht, B., Lem, J., Lindner, H. J., Leonhardt, S., & Walter, M. (2011). ECG on the road: Robust and unobtrusive estimation of heart rate. IEEE Transactions on biomedical engineering, 58(11), 3112-3120.