Common-mode noise cancellation circuit for wearable ECG

Healthc Technol Lett. 2017 Apr 20;4(2):64-67. doi: 10.1049/htl.2016.0083. eCollection 2017 Apr.

Abstract

Wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) is attracting much attention for monitoring heart diseases in healthcare and medical applications. However, an imbalance usually exists between the contact resistances of sensing electrodes, so that a common mode noise caused by external electromagnetic field can be converted into the ECG detection circuit as a differential mode interference voltage. In this study, after explaining the mechanism of how the common mode noise is converted to a differential mode interference voltage, the authors propose a circuit with cadmium sulphide photo-resistors for cancelling the imbalance between the contact resistances and confirm its validity by simulation experiment. As a result, the authors found that the interference voltage generated at the wearable ECG can be effectively reduced to a sufficient small level.

Keywords: CdS; ECG detection circuit; biomedical electrodes; biomedical electronics; cadmium compounds; cadmium sulphide photoresistors; common-mode noise cancellation; contact resistances; differential mode interference voltage; diseases; electrocardiogram; electrocardiography; external electromagnetic field; healthcare; heart disease monitoring; medical applications; medical signal processing; patient monitoring; photoresistors; sensing electrodes; signal denoising; wearable ECG.