Abstract
Portable biomedical instrumentation has become an important part of diagnostic and treatment instrumentation, including telemedicine applications. Lowvoltage and low-power design tendencies prevail. Modern battery cell voltages in the range of 3–3.6V require appropriate circuit solutions. A two-electrode biopotential amplifier design is presented, with a high common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR), high input voltage tolerance and standard first-order high-pass characteristic. Most of these features are due to a high-gain first stage design. The circuit makes use of passive components of popular values and tolerances. Powered by a single 3V source, the amplifier tolerates ±1V common mode voltage, ±50μA common mode current and 2V input DC voltage, and its worst-case CMRR is 60 dB. The amplifier is intended for use in various applications, such as Holter-type monitors, defibrillators, ECG monitors, biotelemetry devices etc.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Burke, M. J., andGleeson, D. T. (2000): ‘A micropower dryelectrode ECG preamplifier’,IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng.,47, pp. 155–162
Chee, J. (2002): ‘Low-frequency high gain amplifier with high DC-offset voltage tolerance’. US patent, US6396343 B2
Dobrev, D. P., andDaskalov, I. K., (2002): ‘Two-electrode biopotential amplifier with current-driven inputs’,Med. Biol. Eng. Comp.,40, pp. 122–127
Dobrev, D. P. (2002): ‘Two-electrode biopotential amplieier’,Med. Biol. Eng. Comp.,40, pp. 546–549
Jorgovanovic, N., Petrovic, R., Dosen, S., andPopovic, D. (2001): ‘A novel AC amplifier for electrophysiology: active DC suppression with differential to differential amplifier in the feedback loop’.23rd Ann. Internat. Conf. IEEE EMBS, CD-ROM, paper 441.pdf
McClellan, A. D. (1981): ‘Extracellular amplifier with bootstrapped input stage results in high common-mode rejection’,Med. Biol. Eng. Comp.,19, pp. 657–658
Neuman, M. R. (1998): ‘Biopotential amplifiers’ inWebster, J. G. (Ed.): ‘Medical instrumentation: applications and design’, 3rd edn (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1998), pp. 262–264
Neuman, M. R. (1995): ‘Biopotential electrodes’, inBronzino, J. D. (Ed): ‘Biomedical engineering handbook’ (CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1995), pp. 745–757
Pallas-Areny, R., andWebster, J. G. (1993): ‘AC instrumentation amplifier for bioimpedance measurements’,IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng.,40, pp. 830–833
Spinelli, E. M., andMayosky, M. A. (2000): ‘AC coupled three opamp amplifier with active DC suppression’,IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng.,47, pp. 1616–1619
Thakor, N., andWebster, J. (1980): ‘Ground-free ECG recording with two electrodes’,IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng.,27, pp. 699–704
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dobrev, D. Two-electrode low supply voltage electrocardiogram signal amplifier. Med. Biol. Eng. Comput. 42, 272–276 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02344642
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02344642