Design of Measurement Device for Impedance

Cardiography

Michaela Snajdarova, Stefan Borik, Ivo Cap

Department of Electromagnetic and Biomedical Engineering
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Zilina
Zilina, Slovakia
michaela.snajdarova@fel.uniza.sk

Abstract—Impedance measurements are gaining importance

in wide field of research. This paper presents the design and
construction of an impedance measurement device based on the
AD5933 integrated circuit. Our low-cost system can be used in
many areas of bioresearch. For the purpose of this paper, the
device was used as impedance cardiography (ICG) analyzer for
human thoracic impedance measurements. The measured raw
data from impedance recordings were processed in order to
extract specific features and several important hemodynamic
parameters were calculated from the ICG curve.
Fig.1. Tetrapolar arrangement of electrodes in bioimpedance
Keywords—AD5933, impedance device, impedance measurements.
cardiography, hemodynamic parameters

I. INTRODUCTION A. Design Principle of the Measurement System

Impedance measurements enable a simple and effective The AD5933 is a high precision impedance converter
electrical characterization of cells, tissues and materials. Every system from Analog Devices and can be operated at a
material possesses the capability to store and to dissipate maximum frequency of 100 kHz [1]. The AD5933 integrated
energy. These properties are indicative of reactance and circuit is the core of our measurement system. Configuration of
resistance – the combination of which represent the complex the AD5933 is done via the ATmega328P microcontroller.
impedance. The AD5933 integrated circuit is an interesting With the help of this microcontroller, we can set the sample
solution for impedance measurements at low frequencies. excitation signal required for impedance measurements to
Using this single chip, it is possible to design relatively cheap 50 kHz, 75 kHz or 100 kHz. The harmonic excitation signal is
and small instruments. Application areas include single cell generated within the impedance converter. The ATmega328P
measurements, blood coagulation detection, biosensor allows reading of the measured data via the I2C interface and
applications, general bioimpedance measurements [1] and non- data transmission to the PC through an USB-UART interface
destructive testing [2]. The aim of this paper is to detail the for further processing.
design, construction and testing of the measurement system in
impedance cardiography applications.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
Electrical impedance of biological objects is evaluated by
measuring voltage changes due to the injection of constant
alternating current within the specimen. Biopotential
electrodes in tetrapolar arrangement are used for picking up
biological signals and for the transduction of ionic currents
into electrical currents. A sinusoidal current with a frequency
of (20 - 100) kHz and an amplitude of (1 - 5) mA is injected
into the patient`s body via external electrodes. The resulting
voltage changes are sensed via internal electrodes [3], [4].

Fig.2. Functional diagram of the designed measurement system.

B. The AD5933 impedance converter The unknown current IL flowing through the load under the
The AD5933 single chip consists of various functional test RL can be expressed from the equivalent circuit in Fig.5.
blocks - for example excitation voltage generation, current
measurement and digital signal processing (Fig.3.). An
unknown impedance Z(ω) is connected between the Vout and
Vin terminals. The output sinusoidal signal is supplied from
the voltage generator with the desired frequency (see previous
chapter) and allows the excitation of the unknown impedance.
The return current from the unknown load then flows into the
Vin pin. Subsequently, a transimpedance amplifier converts
this current into voltage. The gain factor of the mentioned
current–to–voltage converter can be set to 1 or 5, depending
on the measurement conditions. The output voltage of the Fig.5. The equivalent circuit of the VCCS arrangement.
amplifier is further processed using an antialiasing filter and a
12 – bit analog to digital converter [1],[5], [6].
The unknown current IL is expressed in accordance with
The digital signal processing engine of the AD5933 also Kirchhoff's junction rule as:
allows the computation of the Discrete Fourier Transform
from the sampled output voltage signal. The result is stored in
two 16 – bit registers as real and imaginary part of the
IL I R1 I R2.
complex impedance [1].
Currents IR1 and IR2 can be expressed by Kirchhoff's loop rule
as:

Vgen Vx
I R1 ,
R1

Vout Vx
I R2 ,
R2

where Vx is an unknown voltage, Vout is the output voltage and

Vgen is peak-peak output voltage of the AD5933. Resistors R3
Fig.3. Block diagram of the AD5933 impedance converter [1]. and R4 are in voltage divider arrangement and they are equal.
The unknown voltage Vx is then given by:
C. Howland current pump principles
An unknown bioimpedance can be measured by injecting a R3 1
known constant sinusoidal current into the measured system. Vx Vout Vout. (4)
Our design uses a voltage controlled current source (VCCS) to R3 R4 2
accomplished this goal, in a specific arrangement known as
Howland current pump. VCCS only uses one operational The resulting relationship can be obtained by substituting Eq.
amplifier for both positive and negative feedback. The basic (2),(3),(4) into Eq. (1) :
arrangement is shown in Fig.4, wherein R1=R2 and R3=R4.
1 1
Vgen Vout Vout Vout Vgen
IL 2 2 . (5)
R1 R2 R1

The current IL injected into the patient`s body depends only on

the value of R1 resistance. This value was set to 470 Ω in order
to avoid exceeding the set AC current limit. The Howland
current pump was controlled by output voltage from the
impedance converter AD5933 (see Fig.6). However, this output
voltage contains a DC bias which poses a health hazard. A
high-pass RC filter is thus used to remove the DC bias of the
AD5933 excitation signal.

Fig.4. The VCCS arrangement.

 Fig.8. Processing of the detected signal from voltage electrodes.
Fig.6. The connection of VCCS and AD5933.

III. RESULTS
D. Impedance Cardiography Technique The measurement system based on the single chip
ICG is a noninvasive method for monitoring the cardiac impedance analyzer is shown in Fig.9. The accuracy of the
output (CO), stroke volume (SV) and other hemodynamic device was tested on five human subjects without heart
parameters. This technique is based on electrical properties of diseases. ICG measurements were carried out both in the sitting
biological tissues which behave in opposition to an externally and resting conditions. The frequency of the excitation signal
applied current flow. This method consists of applying an was set to 70 kHz and the amplitude of the injected current was
alternating current to the subject and sensing the changes of 4.2 mA.
thoracic impedance caused by blood volume changes in the
aorta during the cardiac cycle. The basic parameter SV informs
us about volume of blood pumped by left ventricle during one
contraction cycle [7],[8].
Four spot Ag-AgCl electrodes were used in the ICG
measurement (see Fig.7.). The sinusoidal current from the
VCCS was injected into the patient's body via the application
electrode placed on the fourth cervical vertebra. The second
electrode, located on the ninth thoracic vertebra, was
connected to the ground and the sensing electrodes were
placed at the beginning and at the end of the sternum [9].
These sensing electrodes were connected to the inputs of the
instrumentation amplifier AD8422 which is connected to the
AD5933 via resistor R3 (see Fig. 8.).
The impedance device measures the ICG signal Fig.9. The constructed device prototype.
simultaneously with the electrocardiographic signal (ECG).
The electrical activity of the heart was recorded via two
additional spot electrodes placed near the heart (modified one- Two biological signals – ICG and ECG – are displayed
lead ECG). The sensing potentials were amplified and online in the software application (see Fig. 10.). The
connected to the inputs of the INA122 operational amplifier. measurement starts with the selection of the injected current
The output signal was digitized by the ATmega328P frequency and pressing the START button. Once set, the
microcontroller and the data was sent together with the ICG frequency cannot be changed during the measurement. The
signal to the PC. data is further processed when the measurement is complete
and sample resulting signals are shown in Fig. 11. Feature
extraction allows the computation of several hemodynamic
parameters [10] such as SV by the following equation:
ρ b L2 dZ
SV 2
LVET , (6)
Z0 dt max

where ρb is a constant denoting the blood resistivity

(130 Ω⋅cm), L is the distance of the sensing electrodes, Z0 is the
basal thoracic impedance and LVET is the left ventricle ejection
time. The ICG curve is obtained as the first time derivative of
Fig.7. Anteropostrerial arrangement of the electrodes. the raw impedance curve and SV calculation can be performed
once the greatest amplitude of the signal and the time interval
LVET are identified. Heart rate (HR) vital parameters is
determined by evaluating the R-R interval duration on ECG
curve and CO is calculated by multiplying SV and HR. The
mentioned hemodynamic parameters for 5 tested subjects are
listed in Tab. 1.
IV. CONCLUSION
The AD5933 based measurement system can detect small
changes in the thoracic impedance and allows simultaneous
measurement of two biological signals. Additionally, the
AD5933 also enables the development of small and portable
devices for ICG measurements and our ultimate goal is to
design a device for continuous (long-term) recording of both
ICG and ECG signals.
The accuracy of our prototype measurement system was
tested on five healthy human subjects. Obtained results
correspond well with the average value of the SV for men and
women with an average weight.

REFERENCES

[1] Analog Devices, AD5933 1 MSPS 12-Bit Impedance Converte,

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Fig.11. Resulting ICG and ECG signals

Tab.1. Measured hemodynamic parameters of five human subjects

# Hemodynamic parameters
Gender Thoracic
LVET CO
F-Female impedance SV [ml/beat]
[s] [ml/min]
M-Male [Ω]

1. F 14.4914a 0.17 93.6939 6558.6

2. M 10.9717 0.15 102.2557 8691.7

3. F 25.8576 0.41 64.4839 4915.6

4. F 20.9864 0.22 67.5181 5198.9

5. M 15.8745 0.20 90.0560 7114.4