Eduardo Aguilar Pelaez, PhD, MBA

Abstract. We present the development of COMMODITY12, a Personal Health System (PHS) to assist in the provision of continuous and personalised health services to diabetic patients, thus empowering their lifestyle regardless of their location. COMMODITY12 consists of ambient, wearable and portable devices, which acquire, monitor and communicate physiological parameters and other health-related context of an individual, such as physical activity and vital body signals. This data is in- terpreted… Show more

Abstract. We present the development of COMMODITY12, a Personal Health System (PHS) to assist in the provision of continuous and personalised health services to diabetic patients, thus empowering their lifestyle regardless of their location. COMMODITY12 consists of ambient, wearable and portable devices, which acquire, monitor and communicate physiological parameters and other health-related context of an individual, such as physical activity and vital body signals. This data is in- terpreted by intelligent agents that use expert biomedical knowledge to derive important insights about the individual’s health status, which are then presented in the form of active feedback to the patient directly from the device, or via health professionals who assist in diagnosis, treatment and life management. The emphasis of the work is on the design of the PHS in terms of its main components, their integration and deployment to address major problems of interest to both diabetic patients and doctors that treat diabetes.
Keywords: Personal health systems, agent technology, diabetes management, interoperability Show less

There is a well established need for the creation of highly miniaturized, long lasting and comfortable EEG systems. Power consumption, particularly of wireless transmission stages, is a major obstacle to the creation of these new EEG systems. This paper presents a 1.8 mW, 12 channel seizure detection algorithm for providing real-time power reduction of the wireless transmitter. An algorithm that can detect 88% of seizures while removing 90% of the background EEG signal is reported and… Show more

There is a well established need for the creation of highly miniaturized, long lasting and comfortable EEG systems. Power consumption, particularly of wireless transmission stages, is a major obstacle to the creation of these new EEG systems. This paper presents a 1.8 mW, 12 channel seizure detection algorithm for providing real-time power reduction of the wireless transmitter. An algorithm that can detect 88% of seizures while removing 90% of the background EEG signal is reported and implemented on a low-power micro-controller platform. This algorithm can be used to decrease the power consumption of the wireless transmitter stage by 90% to allow long term monitoring from very physically small batteries. Show less

This paper presents a novel simple method to identify and remove systematic interference in battery powered physiological monitoring devices. This interference is very typically introduced via fluctuations in the power supply voltage, caused by the non ideal output resistance of small batteries, when a transceiver chip changes operating modes. The proposed method is designed to have low computational complexity in order to potentially allow for low cost, real time implementations on low power… Show more

This paper presents a novel simple method to identify and remove systematic interference in battery powered physiological monitoring devices. This interference is very typically introduced via fluctuations in the power supply voltage, caused by the non ideal output resistance of small batteries, when a transceiver chip changes operating modes. The proposed method is designed to have low computational complexity in order to potentially allow for low cost, real time implementations on low power based platforms, either in the system front or back end. Additionally, the paper provides guidelines on how to choose some of the operating conditions of the transceiver in order to minimize the effect of the interference through the application of the proposed method. Overall, successful performance is illustrated with experimental results obtained from an acoustic monitoring system, since this is considered to have specifications which are representative of most physiological monitoring devices. Show less

We present a system composed of a robust acoustic sensor and algorithm capable of very high sensitivity and specificity detection of apnoea events. Detection of longer periods of apnoea than 30 seconds would be even more reliable. This system represents a ground breaking advance in the field of ambulatory respiratory monitoring.

This paper presents the design of a Pipelined Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) for Electroencephalogram (EEG) applications with 10 bits of resolution, 1.2V of supply voltage and only 1.5μW of power consumption using a standard 0.5μm CMOS technology. Low-voltage and low-power operation has been achieved using Quasi-Floating-Gate (QFG) based circuits. The use of a new class-AB operational amplifier in weak inversion allows very low power consumption and high enough open loop gain. Simulation… Show more

This paper presents the design of a Pipelined Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) for Electroencephalogram (EEG) applications with 10 bits of resolution, 1.2V of supply voltage and only 1.5μW of power consumption using a standard 0.5μm CMOS technology. Low-voltage and low-power operation has been achieved using Quasi-Floating-Gate (QFG) based circuits. The use of a new class-AB operational amplifier in weak inversion allows very low power consumption and high enough open loop gain. Simulation results show an energy efficiency of 0.84 pJ per quantization level, placing the converter into the state-of-the-art of low-frequency low-power ADCs. Show less

This paper presents a low voltage and low power differential photoplethysmographic (PPG) pulse transient time (PTT) detector for ambulatory cardiovascular monitoring. PTT is defined as the time required for the heart beat pressure wave to travel between two points in the body along the arteries and is used as an indirect way of measuring blood pressure (BP). The system's input dynamic rage is optimized by early cancellation of the inherent DC component of the PPG signal at the sensor stage… Show more

This paper presents a low voltage and low power differential photoplethysmographic (PPG) pulse transient time (PTT) detector for ambulatory cardiovascular monitoring. PTT is defined as the time required for the heart beat pressure wave to travel between two points in the body along the arteries and is used as an indirect way of measuring blood pressure (BP). The system's input dynamic rage is optimized by early cancellation of the inherent DC component of the PPG signal at the sensor stage. Common mode light signal rejection is implemented using two crossed zero-biased photodiodes per PPG sensor. Also, robustness of PTT measurement to non-matched input signal magnitudes between the different PPG sensors is achieved by means of an amplitude and rate of change ratio comparison algorithm. The circuit operates with a maximum power supply of 1.25 V and consumes 2.5 muW of power. Show less

The development of ambulatory arterial pulse oximetry is key to longer term monitoring and treatment of cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. The investigation presented in this paper will assist the designer of an ambulatory pulse oximetry monitor in minimizing the overall LED power consumption (PLED,TOT ) levels by analyzing the lowest achievable limit as constrained by the optical components, circuitry implementation and final SpO2 reading accuracy required. LED duty cycle (DLED )… Show more

The development of ambulatory arterial pulse oximetry is key to longer term monitoring and treatment of cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. The investigation presented in this paper will assist the designer of an ambulatory pulse oximetry monitor in minimizing the overall LED power consumption (PLED,TOT ) levels by analyzing the lowest achievable limit as constrained by the optical components, circuitry implementation and final SpO2 reading accuracy required. LED duty cycle (DLED ) reduction and light power (PLED,TOT ) minimization are proposed as methods to reduce p . Bandwidth and signal quality calculations are carried out in order to determine the required PLED,TOT as a function of the different noise sources. Show less