Introduction to the Design of Medical Instrumentation

Introduction to the design of medical instrumentation (257 - 15554)
Study: Bachelor in Biomedical Engineering
Semester 2/Spring Semester
3rd Year Course/Upper Division

Students are Expected to have completed:
- Introduction to bioengineering
- Electronic technology in biomedicine
- Measuring instrumentation

Compentences and Skills that will be Acquired and Learning Results:

The student that successfully finishes this course should understand the biomedical application, specify the user and technical specifications, and provide a complete protocol for the design of a medical instrument.
Besides, after the completion of this course the student should be able to implement a functioning medical instrument using state-of-the-art electronics and sensor technologies.
Special attention will be paid to safety and regulatory aspects applied to biomedical instrumentation.

Description of Contents: Course Description:

1. Basic concepts on biomedical instrumentation.
1.1. Design cycle protocol.
1.2. Regulations and marking.
2. Electrical safety.
2.1. Physiological Effects of Electricity.
2.2. The ground in biomedical instruments.
2.3. Isolated instruments and batteries.
3. Origin of Biopotentials. Techniques to record Biopotentials.
3.1. Principles of bioelectricity.
3.2. Transmembrane Action Potential.
3.3. Transmembrane Resting Potential.
3.4. Ion Channels, Pumps and Exchangers.
4. Electrocardiology. ECG characteristics.
4.1. Anatomy and Physiology of the Heart.
4.2. Electrophysiological Cardiac Behavior.
4.3. Cardiac Transmembrane Action Potential.
4.4. The electrocardiogram (ECG).
4.5. Diagnosis based on the ECG.
4.6. Recording the ECG.
4.7. Invasive Cardiac Mapping Instruments.
5. Signal amplification.
5.1. Operational Amplifiers and applications.
5.2. Output and Input Impedance.
5.3. Instrumentation amplifiers.
6. Signal filtering.
6.1. Frequency domain.
6.2. Ideal Filters.
6.3. Dealing with the Noise.
6.4. Passive Analog Filters.
6.5. Active Analog Filters.
7. Electrodes and Electrolytes.
7.1. Oxidation and reduction.
7.2. Polarizable and Nonpolarizable Electrodes.
7.3. Electrode Behavior and Circuit Models.
8. Sensors: biophysics, design, applications.
8.1. Resistive sensors.
8.2. Capacitive sensors.
8.3. Piezoelectric Sensors.
8.4. Thermocouples.
8.5. Wheatstone Bridge.
9. Electroencephalogram and Magnetroencephalogram.
9.1. Action potentials in Neurons.
9.2. Electric and Magnetic Fields in the brain.
9.3. Electroencephalography (EEG).
9.4. Magnetoencephalography: MEG.
9.5. EEG and MEG signals and applications.
10. Electromyogram, electroneurogram, electrooculogram and electroretinogram.
10.1. Electromyogram (EMG): Principles, instrumentation and applications.
10.2. Electroneurogram (ENG): Principles, instrumentation and applications.
10.3. Electrooculogram (EOG): Principles, instrumentation and applications.
10.4. Electroretinogram (ERG): Principles, instrumentation and applications.
11. Implantable devices.
11.1. Cardiac Pacemakers.
11.2. Brain Pacemakers
11.3. Defibrillators.
12. Optical and light based measurement system.
12.1. Basis of Light Propagation in Tissues.
12.2. Light Scattering.
12.3. Light Absorption.
12.4. Optical Contrast Agents.
13. Introduction to Digital Signal Processing.
13.1. Analog-to-digital converter.
13.2. Digital Frequency.
13.3. Digital Filtering.
13.4. Changing sampling rate.
13.5. Spectral estimation.
14. Applications of Digital Signal Processing.
14.1. Preprocessing signals.
14.2. Automatic detection of events.
14.3. Classification of events.
14.4. Nonlinear analysis of a sequence of events.
15. LabVIEW
15.1. LabVIEW Environment.
15.2. Data Acquisition in LabVIEW.
15.3. Typical structures and data analysis.

Learning Activities and Methodology:

Teaching methodology will be mainly based on lectures, seminars and practical sessions.
Lectures will be used by the teachers to present the main concepts of the course.
Seminars will be mainly dedicated to interactive discussion with the students and to stress and clarify the most interessing and difficult points. Deliverable exercises and presentations will be done during the sessions.
Grading will be based on continuous evaluation (including a partial exam, practical sessions, and student participation in class and Aula Global) and a final exam covering the whole subject. Help sessions and tutorial classes will be held prior to the final exam.
Attendance to lectures, short-exams or submission of possible homework is not compulsory. However, failure to attend any exam or submit the exercises before the deadline will result in a mark of 0 in the corresponding continuous evaluation block.
The practical sessions will consist on laboratory work and visits to research or clinical centers. A laboratory report will be required for each of them. The attendance to practical sessions is mandatory. Failure to hand in the laboratory reports on time or unjustified lack of attendance will result in 0 marking for that continuous evaluation block.

Assessment System:

Grading:
Continuous evaluation: It accounts for up to 50% of the final score of the subject, and includes three components:
1) Partila exams (10% of the final mark): These exams will take place in a lecture session, and will be announced at least one week in advance. Results of these exams will constitute the core of the continuous evaluation.
2) Practical sessions (25% of the final mark): They will be assessed through a laboratory notebook, laboratory reports and/or questionnaires that will be handed in at the end of each practical session. Attendance to at least 80% of the practical sessions is mandatory; otherwise the score will be 0 in this item.
3) Deliverable exercises, student participation and presentations in the seminar sessions (15% of the final mark): It includes exercises and homework (quizzes to be solved in groups or individually), other activities, and contribution in sessions.

Final exam: The final exam will cover the whole subject and will account 50 % of the final score. The minimum score in the final exam to pass the subject is 4.0 over 10, notwithstanding the mark obtained in continuous evaluation.

Extraordinary exams: The mark for students attending any extraordinary examination will be the maximum between:
a) 100% extraordinary exam mark, or
b) 50% extraordinary exam mark and 50% continuous evaluation if it is available in the same course.

Academic conduct: All exams will be closed-book, closed-notes, no PC or mobile phone, or anything else other than a writing implement and the exam itself. Plagiarism, cheating or other acts of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated.
% end-of-term-examination: 50
% of continuous assessment (assigments, laboratory, practicals...): 50

Basic Bibliography:

J.G. Webster. Medical Instrumentation Application and Design. John Wiley and Sons, Inc..
L.A. Geddes and L.E. Baker. Principles of Applied Biomedical Instrumentation. John Wiley and Sons, Inc..

Additional Bibliography:

A.F. Arbel. Analog Signal Processing and Instrumentation. Cambridge University Press.
J.B Olansen, E. Rosow. Virtual Bio-Instrumentation. Prentice Hall PTR.
L. Cromwell, F.J. Weibell, E.A. Pfeiffer. Biomedical Instrumentation and Measurements. Prentice Hall Career & Technology.
R. Sarpeshkar. Ultra Low Power Bioelectronics. Cambridge University Press.