Gaetano Gargiulo

School of Electrical and Information Engineering
The University of Sydney

Research

Design of wearable biomedical hardware suitable for athletes, not invasive long term monitoring and Brain Computer Interface with intelligent wireless capability: realization and evaluation of some prototypes:

Output of this project will be new biomedical instrumentations able to work with long-term suitable dry electrodes embedded in the clothes to minimize the discomfort given by the use of standard sensing electrodes.
As is well known the standard biomedical recording systems are not suitable for the not invasive long-term recording, always a skin preparation is needed, in some case (EEG) an expert is needed and it can took hours. Often the sensing electrodes are sticky on the skin using special glue or special stickers, common problems that decrease the signal to noise ratio are the strength loss of the glue caused by humidity, sweat, or subject’s movements and the desiccation or lacking of the electrolytic gel.
This study is divided in 3 milestones (i) Developing a low power, low noise analogical front end able to work with passive dry electrodes. Aim of the project perturbing less as possible the subject’s daily life and activity transforming the hardware wearable without skin preparation. (ii) Use of the developed hardware in long-term monitoring, athlete monitoring and in BCI (Brain Computer Interface) task. A BCI will offer such a new communication channel between the human brain and the external world that does not depends from the standard brain’s output pathways. Target subjects for the intensive use of a non-invasive EEG based BCI are the patient severe impaired (spinal cord injuries nervous/muscular disease affected patients) or locked in. By definition, a 24hr EEG recording is needed, and the standard wet systems are not suitable for this application. (iii) By the addition of the proper wireless technology to the developed analogical hardware, the patient will be free to move, the BCI system will come out from the controlled environment of a neuro-physiology lab.


Supervisors:
Prof. Mario Cesarelli, A/Prof Paolo Bifulco, at Biomedical Unit Electronic Engineering Faculty University of Naples “Federico II”

Co-supervisors:
Dr. André van Schaik, Dr. Craig Jin and Dr. Rafael A. Calvo, at Electrical and Information Engineering Faculty University of Sydney

Keywords:
Brain Computer Interface (BCI), long-term patient monitoring, wearable biomedical sensors, biomedical instrumentations.