AD8232 to Biopotentials Sensors: Open Source Project and Benchmark

Abstract

Acquiring biopotentials with fidelity using low-cost circuits is a significant challenge in biomedical instrumentation. In this perspective, our goal is to investigate the characteristics of the widely applied AD8232®, an analog front-end for biopotential acquisition. We designed and evaluated circuits to acquire the most common biosignals: electrocardiogram (ECG), electromyogram (EMG), and electroencephalogram (EEG). Our findings show that the circuit is suitable for ECG and EMG instrumentation, although it has limitations for EEG signals, particularly concerning the gain. The entire project of the boards is also a contribution of this work as we intend to corroborate open-source do-it-yourself biomedical instrumentation.

Keywords

• low-cost
• electronic instrumentation
• biomedical engineering
• electromyography
• electrocardiography
• electroencephalography