Construction and Programming of AC Sensor Systems

• Apply the V-model (Conceive–Design–Implement–Integrate–Verify) to structure, manage, and document a technology development process and ensure traceability between needs, requirements, design, and verification.
• Independently analyze problem statements, define and justify the architectural partitioning of the system, and allocate requirements between analogue and digital subsystems with due consideration to system responsibilities and interfaces.
• Conduct relevant and critical information searches within cardiac electrophysiology, physics, circuit theory and embedded systems in order to expand and consolidate knowledge in relation to a specific development task.
• Explain cardiac electrophysiology, including action potentials, the cardiac vector, lead vectors, and the formation of differential leads from the body, and relate these to measured ECG signals.
• Analyze the physical constraints of bioelectrical measurement systems, including electrode properties, half-cell potentials, impedance conditions, electrical interference, and fundamental principles of electrical safety.
• Explain and apply theories and methods in AC circuit analysis with emphasis on amplification, filtering, and circuit-level management of differential and common-mode interference.
• Develop requirement specifications for an analogue circuit for ECG measurement, design, dimension, and simulate the solution, and verify the design through digital prototyping prior to physical implementation.
• Construct and test a physical prototype through PCB design, component assembly, troubleshooting, and experimental verification in accordance with specifications and safety requirements.
• Explain and apply core concepts in standard C, including scope, storage, pointers, structures, unions and modularization across multiple source files.
• Apply register-level programming on the ATmega328P to configure interrupts, timers, and timer-controlled analogue-to-digital conversion for deterministic signal acquisition.
• Design and implement software on the Arduino Uno R3 that receives and executes commands from a user interface, performs timer-controlled and interrupt-based digitization of bioelectrical signals, and transmits data back to the graphical user interface.
• Apply artificial intelligence as a learning tool to evaluate and improve one’s own circuit design solutions and developed software through AI-based peer review.

Conceive

Needfinding and problem definition within bioelectrical measurement.
Cardiac electrophysiology, cardiac vector, and differential leads.
Electrodes, half-cell potentials, electrical interference, and principles of electrical safety.
Overall system concept, subsystem responsibilities, and requirement specification, including definition of interfaces between analogue hardware, embedded firmware, and user software.

Design

AC circuit analysis: phasor notation, impedance, DC- and AC-coupled instrumentation amplifiers, passive and active low-pass and high-pass filters, and frequency characteristics.
Interfacing between analogue and digital systems: sampling, quantization noise, and aliasing.
System architecture for microcontroller-based data acquisition.
Design of Python-based user software with graphical user interface, command set, and communication protocol to a peripheral microcontroller.

Implement

PCB design and layout of a double-sided printed circuit board for an analogue ECG amplifier.
C programming: scope, storage, pointers, structures, unions and modularization across multiple source files.
Register-level programming of the microcontroller (interrupts, timers, ADC).
Implementation of Python user software with real-time plotting, command handling, and serial communication.

Integrate

Integration of analogue amplification, digitization, and user interface.
Communication between user software and firmware via a defined command protocol.
Synchronization of sampling, data transport, and visualization.
Management of interference, timing, and system interfaces.

Verify

Experimental testing and validation of circuits and software against specified requirements.
Built-in verification tools in the user software (test modes, signal generation, data inspection).
Analysis of frequency response, noise, dynamic range, and data integrity.
Overall system verification of measurement, storage, visualization, and analysis of ECG signals.

01001/01002/01005/02002/22433/22461/22438/22439, Competencies in analysis, simulation, and construction of DC circuits and programming of ATmega328P microcontrollers in C are essential.

Lectures, self-instruction, exercises, lab exercises, continued design-build project.

This course constitutes the intermediate project for the BSc in Medicine and Technology. Students must bring and use their own Arduino development kit. It is highly recommended to take this course in parallel with 22050 Signals and linear systems in continuous time. 22050 offers much theory supporting course work in this course. AI is used as a learning tool in the course, but is not used at the exam.

Minimum: 10, Maximum: 90.

Please be aware that this course has a minimum requirement for the number of participants needed, in order for it to be held. If these requirements are not met, then the course will not be held. Furthermore, there is a limited number of seats available. If there are too many applicants, a pool will be created for the remainder of the qualified applicants, and they will be selected at random. You will be informed 8 days before the start of the course, whether you have been allocated a spot.